[NSRCA-discussion] Equipment cost and partiicpation -- a different viewpoint (LONG)

[David Flynt]

There has been a lot of discussion about the cost of pattern equipment and
how it might be the cause of low participation and low rate of recruiting
new pilots.  There are several flavors of the claim that I have heard:

1.	If pattern were not expensive, more rc pilots would participate.
2.	Pattern is not necessarily expensive, but there is an impression that you
must have an expensive plane to win.  If we could just get the message
across that you do not need an expensive airplane, then more rc pilots would
participate.
3.	It is bad to spend a lot of money on pattern equipment, because that will
cause others to purchase more expensive equipment.
4.	You cannot win with a low cost airplane (aka roach – nothing personal).
You need a fancy, expensive airplane to win.
5.	You should build your own airplane, preferably using wood, because that
will lower your cost.
6.	Lowering cost is the key to saving pattern.


I disagree with all of these viewpoints, and I will argue why I feel this
way.  But first, let me say a couple of things.  1) I like a bargain and
value as much as anybody.  Nobody throws money away.  Have you ever
purchased something and paid more than the retail price because you felt
that you were cheating the business?  Nobody does that.  We all hunt for
bargains.  So low cost is a great thing.  2) Please don’t take anything I
say personal or as criticism, even if I use inflammatory terms such as
roach.  I don’t mean to upset anybody.  It is just a discussion.

Let’s start with number 1:  If pattern were not expensive, more rc pilots
would participate.

This one is easy.  Golf is arguably at least as expensive as pattern.  It
can be done on the cheap, but for the most part there are people in every
corner of the United States that play golf and spend many thousands on it
each year.  They buy expensive equipment, pay for lessons, join country
clubs, and spend lots of money – much more than pattern pilots on average.
There are many more golfers than even RC pilots.  There is wealth in this
country, but even the not so wealthy play golf and spend big bucks.  If cost
were a barrier, then there would be fewer golfers than pattern pilots.  But
there are more golfers than pattern pilots; therefore cost is not a barrier.

Number 2: Pattern is not necessarily expensive, but there is an impression
that you must have an expensive plane to win.  If we could just get the
message across that you do not need an expensive airplane, then more rc
pilots would participate.

It is true that pattern equipment is not necessarily expensive.  Probably
$1000, depending on the servos is the minimum competitive setup in upper
classes, and this could be very competitive.

Let me try this argument.  Consider the piano.  How many people play?
Probably not very many.  A piano can be expensive or inexpensive.  You can
buy a used piano or an electric keyboard for a few hundred dollars.  Now if
I offer to give you a Steinway Model D piano, would you give up pattern and
start playing piano?    You're probably not going to give up pattern just
because I subsidize a piano for you.  If you were truly interested in piano,
you would figure out a way to start playing.  Subsidizing is completely
unnecessary.  The same is true for pattern.

Now, do you need a Steinway to play well?  I can tell you it is a better
instrument than most.  So what.  You don't need a Steinway to play the piano
well.  You need to practice to play well.  But let's say you like the way a
Steinway feels and sounds, and it makes you happy to have one, and you don't
mind spending the extra money on one.  Is there something wrong with that?
In other words, if you buy a Steinway, do you really think somebody else who
is sincerely interested in piano would somehow become frustrated and never
play because you can afford a Steinway but they cannot?  That's ridiculous.
Anybody who is sincerely interested will play the piano whether or not they
can afford a Steinway.  The same is true with pattern.

Number 3:  It is bad to spend a lot of money on pattern equipment, because
that will cause others to purchase more expensive equipment.

There are a lot of people on this list that have this philosophy.  I think
it all started with Dick Hansen.  He is the leader of the cost crusade.
>From talking to him over the years and from reading his posts on RC
Universe, he takes this to the extreme:  It if cannot be done cheap, then it
should not be done at all.  Dick is a true leader and innovator in pattern.
He has proven over and over that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on
equipment.  This just goes to show you that if one person spends a lot of
money on equipment, not everybody else will.  There are a lot of people in
the cost crusade camp (maybe we should call them roachies for short), so
just because one person spends a lot of money on equipment, evidence
suggests that not everybody else will.

Electric is a good example.  Well, maybe less so, because it appears that
the costs of electric can compete with the cost of IC.  But just for
argument, let’s say electric is much more expensive than IC.  As an example,
I do not have any near term plans to switch to electric.  I’m just having
too much fun with IC, and I now have a 2c pattern ship, and one with a
160DZ.  As much as I complain about how difficult it is to tune a 2c, I am
interested in it.  Electric is also interesting, but I don’t think it scales
that well.  It is great for foamies, but I still think the batteries and
motors are on the edge of stability.  65 amps is a lot of current!  The
batteries also scare me because of cost and fire potential.  But mostly, I
don’t really think electric is all that great and definitely not necessary
to win.  Advocates for electric say the maintenance costs are much less for
electric because of less vibration.  I’m all for low vibration.  It can
damage your airframe and servos.  But if you get 2000 flights on a composite
airframe with a DZ, and you need to service your servo gears and pots every
100 flights, what is the cost difference between replacing your battery
packs every 100 flights?  You can afford to buy a backup set of servos, and
then just send them in for service.  And after 2000 flights, you might be
ready to try a new airframe.  It certainly does not owe you anything after
2000 flights.  The point is not whether Electric is good or bad, but that it
is not necessary, and not everybody is going to follow and switch to
Electric.  That’s the point.

Number 4 – my favorite topic:  You cannot win with a low cost airplane (aka
roach – nothing personal).  You need a fancy, expensive airplane to win.

Let’s all get on the same page as to what a roach is.  A roach is simply an
airplane that is hard on the eyes.  I am not the founder of the term.
Dennis Galloway, a former FAI pilot in California and good friend of mine
may have coined the term.  He once did an air show in Santa Maria, and he
did a knife-edge pass under a 6-foot high limbo bar with an old, beat up
Goldberg Ultimate Biplane.  He said, “I may crash, but this old roach owes
me nothing.”  He made it under the bar not just once, but twice.  He had not
planned on doing it twice, but I did not have the record button turned on
his video camera during the first pass.  Another typical characteristic of
an old roach is that it just never dies.  The converse is unfortunately
true – the brand new expensive airplane is somehow drawn more powerfully to
earth to its demise than the roach.  It is a cruel twist of fate, similar to
having a pretty wife, but an unhappy, short marriage.

Not all scratch built planes are roaches.  In fact, most are not.  Some
examples are in order:  All of the Japanese planes that are seen at the
world’s competitions are NOT roaches.  These set the standard of beauty and
craftsmanship, and are typically hand crafted from balsa wood.  Naruke Hobby
and Oxai airplanes are not roaches.  A good example of a roach is the
Piedmont Focus or Focus II, especially one that has seen too many hard
landings and has a good deal of hangar rash from throwing it carelessly into
the back of a pickup over a couple of years.  Perhaps the best example of a
roach is the Insight.  You would need to work really hard to design a more
unsightly pattern plane.  But if it flies well, and holds up well, then it
is a good pattern plane.

So, can you win with a roach or inexpensive plane?  I’m sure everybody has
examples of being beaten by somebody with a roach.  It’s not how the plane
looks, it is how it flies, and how well the pilot moves the sticks.  I like
a fancy French composite plane, but I will be the first to admit that you
can win with a roach.  It’s proven all the time.  Except at the worlds.  You
won’t see many roaches in the top ten, but I speculate that that is because
the top ten prefer to fly non-roaches, and they can, so they do.  But a
roach can fly as well as any plane.  Look at the results for the Focus.  Don
Szczur won the Nats with it.  That is a darn good flying roach.

Number 5 -- You should build your own airplane, preferably using wood,
because that will lower your cost.

I’ve nothing against wood or saving money.  However, saving time can be more
valuable than saving money.  Also, I feel that there are not enough good
choices for wood pattern kits.  If there were something that looked like a
Znline Oxalys or PL Partner, was constructed out of wood like the Exclusive
Modelbau kits, HAD A NOSE RING, then I would buy and build one.  The lazer
cut EM kits are the cat’s meow.  These are very light for their size, fit
perfectly, are engineered well, and use excellent wood.  I don’t really like
the sheeted and painted scratch built Typhoons and varieties.  There is too
much work and too heavy.  You don’t need all that sheeting for strength and
rigidity.  That is just for looks.  I would like to see a hogged out light
ply fuse that can be covered with transparent film, and no special jigs or
finishing techniques required.  There is a market for that.  EM should
produce a pattern kit, or somebody should, but update the design from the
Typhoon.  A tall, wide fuse is the correct design, all lazer cut.  Built-up
or foam core wings – either one.

Some math is in order.  Let’s say you make $100,000 salary per year.  That
means your time is worth $50.00 per hour.  You could do side work in
addition to your 40 hours per week, and bring home a lot of extra money.  If
you spend 200 to 300 hours building one airplane, then your $150 roach
really cost you $10,000 to $15,000 to build.  I like building airplanes, but
I hate spending all that time building because of the math.  I simply lose
too much opportunity money in the deal.  Painting an airframe takes me about
60 or more hours.  It’s just not worth it.  Would you build your own car,
house, piano?  Very few people do because it consumes too much time.  It may
lower the cost, but you may lose ten fold in time.  That’s why you buy
products.  You trade money for products because it is cheaper than making it
yourself.  A $3000 Oxai ARF, is a way better value to me than building
myself.  Do the math.  Even if your time is worth only $20 per hour, you
come out way ahead, and you get a much nicer airplane.

I know people that spend 200 to 300 hours of their time on real estate
investments, and flip a home or two each year for a tidy profit of $50,000.
That roach could be costing you $50,000.  You might want to boast about how
much you saved over a $6000 Naruke Hobby airframe, but to me, you lose
$50,000 dollars each time you build a roach.  Personally, I don’t see a big
future in scratch building.  Do the math.

Number 6: Lowering cost is the key to saving pattern.

The major expense in pattern is getting to contests.  Going to the Nats
would probably cost me $4000 to $5000 in gas, lodging, food, wear and tear
on my Minivan, and two weeks of vacation.  I can trade the whole experience
for a ready to fly Oxai.  Attending local contests is just as expensive,
except I don’t need to burn the vacation time.  Attending six local contests
costs me $2400:  600 miles average round trip at $3.00 per gallon, 20 mpg =
$540, $0.10 per mile wear and tear = $360, lodging for 12 nights at $75.00
per night = $900, and food out at $100 per event = $600.  Flying a $1000
plane versus a $5000 plane is going to help.  If that is what you need to
do, then there should be little excuse for not showing up at a contest.  The
cost crusaders talk about lowering cost of equipment, but completely ignore
the major expense of getting to contests.  Despite the costs, we get to
contests because we enjoy it enough to part with our money.

I really don’t think it is expense that drives people away from pattern.
Look at the golf example.  There just is not that many that people who are
interested in pattern, or rc for that matter.  This could change, but there
will never be as many pattern pilots as there are golfers.

Part of the fun with Pattern is playing with equipment.  Whether you fly a
roach, or a $6000 Naruke airframe, we all share a passion with the
equipment.  I think that is why we discuss it so much – which power
technology is best, and how much it costs, whether it is necessary are
frequent topics of interest.  In conclusion, I would like to say that it is
OK to scratch build, and OK to not.  It is OK to spend very little, and OK
to spend a lot.  The amount you spend has no impact on the health of pattern
and its survival.  This is an entirely orthogonal matter.

If you got this far through my note, I would be interested to hear what you
think.  Thanks.

David