Does Pattern competition cost too much?

[Michael Cohen]

The IMAC contest in ABQ had 30+ flyers, our pattern contest two weeks later had 16.  This imbalance has been in place since I have lived out here.  But Richard Lindberg, Kent Paul, and I are working hard on continuing to make our contest more and more popular and we have enjoyed increasing numbers for the past three years.  I think one reason for IMAC's popularity is the abundance of relatively inexpensive, decent quality ARFs.  Now that we are seeing more and more pattern type ARFs coming to the market, we need to encourage people to try them, and encourage those that buy them to give competition a try.  Richard has does an excellent job of assisting members of our club, to the expense of his own flying.  And he has helped nurture some of those members in the pattern arena.  Wish I could help more, but three kids and working at Eclipse Aviation tends to put dampers on being able to get out to fly, let alone help others.  Anyhow, just keep encouraging others, share your R/C knowledge, and shamelessly promote our version of R/C and that can only help increase attendance at contests.

Mike Cohen
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: J.Oddino 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 3:40 PM
  Subject: Does Pattern competition cost too much?


  From time to time I hear folks suggesting the reason the number of contestants is down is due to the high cost of pattern planes and support equipment.  Well I don't believe that is the reason.  This weekend I went to a relatively local IMAC contest in Camarillo California and there were somthing like 61 preregistered and 56 actually flying.  I'd guess 80% of the planes were 40% scale, meaning they had $1500 engines and $3000 airframes and $1500 worth of servos.  Then you've got the motor homes and trucks and trailers to transport them.  I still say the highest cost of flying is the driving to and from the field and that is probably why the park flyers are so popular.  
  So what is the reason for the drop in attendance and the drop in the number of pattern contests?  Or is that only in Southern California?

  Jim O
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