[NSRCA-discussion] stirring the pot..;)

[Atwood, Mark]

District 4 is a new comer to the "Fly F" on Sunday plan.  As an FAI group, we all agreed that we want, and need to fly it or we have no hope at the nats.  Most of us (Andrew is clearly the exception) fight for a chance to fly in the semi's at the nats, if we get a chance at all. Because of that, we spend the bulk, if not ALL of our time flying P.  When we do squeak in the door, we are abysmal at the F pattern.

So last fall we basically agreed we would try F at the local contests.  I have to admit, it's been a challenge to get the F sequence down, but KNOWING that we'll be flying it at the first contest of the year forced us (me at least) to split our time between F and P and learn it.

I use to be a competitive Masters flyer but since moving to FAI, 2 kids, my own business, blah blah blah, there was never really time to try and be in the FAI hunt, and any chance of being there has since passed.  But I love to fly, and love the challenge of learning and getting better.  So I've welcomed being "forced" to learn F more competently.

I'm sure flying F will dissuade a few from making the jump to FAI.   But if F is part of being in FAI, then I'm not sure NOT flying it regularly is the answer.

I personally like Earl's idea of being able to fly what you can fly (P or F).  I'm pretty sure we would all agree to that, but I'm also pretty sure everyone would at least give F a try.  We all collected our share of wood in the lower classes, and now we fly for personal accomplishment and trying to beat each other in a more friendly manner AND prepare for the nats where we hope to test ourselves against the rest of the group that we don't see every weekend.  Those that are truly hoping to join in the hunt to make the finals in FAI NEED to fly F and be judged on it as often as possible.

Besides...Andrew takes home all of the good prizes in D4 anyway. :):)



From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Earl Haury
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 7:07 PM
To: General pattern discussion
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] stirring the pot..;)

Mark

They're are probably different views on this and no one is totally wrong.

We originally began flying F on Sunday in D6 so that folks going to the Nats had an opportunity to get some F experience in competition. It's even more desirable with the current Nats format allowing for 20 to move from the prelims to the semi's. When we first did this, it was agreed that anyone who wished could fly P on Sunday with the P & F scores normalized / combined for round placing, treating the total as a conventional 5 or 6 round event. I think that this is still the best way to handle it - the folks flying F simply "handicap" themselves - but we're out for the experience anyway. It just hasn't been brought up recently, as everyone now seems to want to fly F.

Rather than dropping one of 4 P's and one F (it was done this way at Temple), it would be according the F3A rules to drop one of 4 P's, then normalize the remaining 3 P scores to 1000. The outcome is then determined by the best two of the (normalized) P score and the two F scores. (Either one F or the P score is dropped.) However, this doesn't work well when only three P's are flown, nor when 3 F's are flown as happens at some D6 meets. The FAI F3A rules are designed for large events and there is no particular rule for the typical local meet we hold in the US.

As Dave mentions, some folks have no interest in learning both sequences and that's their choice. I do think it's also very good for the game to be able to fly both if you wish. Hopefully more events will choose to try the above format as it allows for both interests. Some of us have no interest in attending a meet if there isn't an opportunity to fly F so, as I said, different preferences are valid.

As an aside, for the last several rules cycles the D6 contests have switched to the new P schedule after the Nats for the remaining fall events. I hope that we continue that practice again this year.

Earl
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Hunt<mailto:flyintexan at att.net>
To: pattern discussion<mailto:nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 4:57 PM
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] stirring the pot..;)

I have taken note that since we started flying the F pattern regularly on Sunday at local contests (couple years now), we have been scoring it in such a way that it is simply treated as a 6 round contest in which any combination of the F and P sequences may be the drop rounds.  I think the concensus originaly being that not everyone is comfortable flying the F, allowing those that only practice the P to be able to drop both F rounds (usually 2 F rounds on Sunday).

Hypothetically, it could be run and tabulated in such a way that in a typical 6 round contest of 4 P's and 2 F's, you would drop one P and one F.  More of a Prelims and Finals style.

It's not any serious concern to me, but I am curious, what is the concensus among FAI pilots now?  Just keep it the same, or consider changing?


-mark
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