Schedule design - Your homework assignment should you chose to accept it.

[Verne Koester]

Hank (I assume),

Thanks, the opinion of people like yourself is the one we've been missing for a long time. It's also the most important one. If nothing else, this forum provides a mechanism for those of us who've been in the game for a while to hear the viewpoints of those on the outside considering it. I'm not sure that this describes you, but we sure need some feedback from those we're trying to attract. 

I've helped various people in recent years that want to get into pattern. The most recent was last summer and involved two guys. Both are way above average sport flyers and both went full boat with Focus II's and all the right stuff. One of the guys used to fly the old Sportsman pattern in pre-turnaround days and was one of those "weekend warriors" I described. He can, BTW, fly three horizontal rolls very well and actually flies the maneuver rather than just surviving it. Anyway, I had a VERY difficult time convincing him to fly Sportsman because he was very competent flying the Intermediate maneuvers one by one. I finally convinced him to go with Sportsman and he had an extremely frustrating experience trying to keep it all in the box. I thought he was going to give it up but he hung in there and actually won the contest I was prepping him for.

The other guy wanted to fly in Advanced because he could do all those maneuvers one by one. I couldn't talk him down to Sportsman but at least got him to go with Intermediate. He was in over his head and got creamed. I'm not sure if either or both of these guys will be back, but I'm sure they'd compete in the Sportsman schedule I described and that's two more contestants than we'd normally have. Once we had them around us for a few contests, who knows? And once they spread the word about how much fun they were having with this challenging, but low pressure schedule, who knows how many other sport flyers they'd attract? More guys for us to meet, help, and get to join us.

Right now my club sees me practicing Masters and occasionally Andrew Jesky practicing FAI and all the other stuff he does. I have no doubt that these guys can't relate what they're doing to what we do, no matter how much we try to convince them. They could relate to those other two guys, though, especially if they were flying one maneuver at a time rather than the whole package that comes in a turnaround schedule. Food for thought, but I think it could be contagious.......

Verne Koester
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: HankPajari at aol.com 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 9:45 PM
  Subject: Re: Schedule design - Your homework assignment should you chose to accept it.


  Hi

  Found the old A pattern, the equivalent of Sportsman.

  Takeoff
  Straight Flight out
  Procedure Turn
  Straight Flight In
  Figure Eight (Horizontal)
  Three Rolls
  Immelman Turn
  Stall Turn
  Traffic Pattern Approach
  Landing Perfection
  Spot Landing

  As we can see this is much less demanding that the current Sportsman but at the same time gave a beginner confidence that he wouldn't smash his airplane or make too big a fool out of himself, it really wasn't a whole lot more complex than a fun fly event.  However, I think given the state of the art today, the Sportsman as it is now is not too demanding, except the fact that you have to stay in the box.  

  I really like the Sportsman you came up with and honestly believe that it would bring more pilots into the fray.  You don't want it too easy but at the same time you don't want airplane breakers either.  The way it is setup today the maneuvers are a little easier than the ones you propose but the pilot may feel rushed to stay in the box.  This leads to botched maneuvers and maybe an out of control plane.  Remember I am talking about entry level here.  Personnaly I would rather be challenged by tougher maneuvers than being rushed to stay in the box and risking a rushed maneuver and blowing it.

  Good thinking, thanks.
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