Growing Pattern?

[Tim Taylor]

As most of you know for reasons beyond my control at the time I was forced to quit flying Pattern for a number of years. Now that I have the means and opportunity to jump back into the "pattern wars" I'm doing so whole heartedly but having been out of it so long alot of what has transpired since I was away has really taken me by surprise. First and foremost was the COST of kits and engines, talk about sticker shock !!!! 

I almost decided to stop the "Return of the King" right then and there. :) 

It was very hard to justify the price of today's "Top of the line" kit just to fly a few weekends a year, which led me to ask myself "Do I really need a PL or ZN airframe to be competitive in the local contest trail? After thinking on this for a few weeks the answer was a resounding NO !!! After adding up the cost of these kits along with the cost of the current "King of the hill" engine (Figured on a YS1.60DZ with exhaust, just used for price comparisons) and a new radio I just decided I was going to go in a different direction. 

I believe that if pattern is going to grow we need more airplanes like what Piedmont had in the Focus series as well as a few other manufactures. Those airplanes gave great abilities to the masses at a price that was affordable and were easy to assemble and maintain. It appears that the Focus series of arf/arc might die due to the "Keep up with the Jones" attitude. Come on now the Focus has won how many classes at the Nats? This year it was the "Impact" composite airframe and alot of people are jumping on that airplane now because Jason won with it. Next year it might be something else and the cycle continues over and over again. The mentality that we have to have these high dollar airframes is killing the sport period! 

I submit that the average pattern flier cannot fly the current airframe he has to within 75% of the airframes ability so instead of practicing and getting a good coach they try to make themselves better by buying/building a better airplane. Remember when Hanno's designs (Magic?) were deemed getting "To complex"? So what does Hanno do? He designs a basic airplane (Superfly?) and just kicked BUTT with it. This madness is going to kill our sport very quickly when the cost of a full up 2m pattern ship kit cost more than  the avg ready to fly 30% that avg joe at your local flying field builds and flies every weekend. Don't you think that if there was a huge market for pattern planes that Chip would have his business geared towards pattern but he doesn't because he knows where the majority of the flying is done and it isn't in pattern, given the amount of ex-pattern fliers that now fly IMAC style airplanes or quit flying all together it's cost being the driving factor IMHO.



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