[NSRCA-discussion] Rules proposal 11-6 question

[Pete Cosky]

I partially agree with your last post but those building blocks have to come from somewhere. From my experience, I moved out of Sportsman 4 years ago and then stopped flying to help raise my son until this year when I got to fly again in Intermediate. My flights were ugly but at least I had an idea of how it all had to go together because I learned those building blocks in Sportsman. IF what is proposed were to have happened in my particular case it would have been quite the obstacle to overcome and probably would have taken some of the fun out flying pattern for me.

If a pilot needs work on geometry, and I know I sure do, then take the time to practice the given maneuver outside the sequence. Go and burn a few tanks flying the problem maneuvers and nothing else. 

My opinion is Sportsman is fine the way it is and it lays a good foundation for the progression in the classes.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Gayer 
  To: General pattern discussion 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:42 PM
  Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Rules proposal 11-6 question


  I'm not sure why it makes sense to place the burden of learning box management on the Sportsman flyer rather than the Intermediate flyer. >From what I've seen helping Sportsman flyers, exiting the box twice doesn't help much.  Where they need help is in the geometry and centering of maneuvers. 
  Any Sportsman flyer that can manage the box, turnaround maneuvers and centering plus execute the geometry should be in Intermediate.

  John Gayer

  Pete Cosky wrote: 
    I would disagree about removing the turnarounds from Sportsman since they have the opportunity to exit the box twice and get back on their line. Those turnaround maneuvers teach where the box is and how to manage the confines of it. If you remove the turnarounds then the move to intermediate becomes much more difficult as now the newly moved pilot would not only have to worry about turnarounds and center maneuvers but also box management.


      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: John Gayer 
      To: General pattern discussion 
      Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 11:39 AM
      Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Rules proposal 11-6 question


      As I recall, the ONLY reason AMA is now flying turnaround is because F3A went to a turnaround format. The "powersthatwere" were concerned that our team would not have the relevant experience to compete on the world stage. This started a process of conversion to turnaround by including the FAI pattern and then expert turnaround in AMA pattern contests.
      The pendulum has now swung the other way where the AMA pattern community, while overly committed to turnaround, rejects the patterns, rules and concepts of the FAI.

      While I no longer see a need to use the current(or past schedule as we have already done) F3A pattern as the Masters pattern, I believe it is important to address whatever is new and challenging in the upcoming F3A patterns and consider introducing similar elements into the Masters pattern.

      At the other end of the spectrum, I believe that the Sportsman class should have the turnaround elements removed completely. Perhaps some of the center maneuvers could be upgraded in difficulty at the same time. The sportsman flyer needs more focus on learning the maneuvers and where to place them. Making them fly the box simply insures that they aree not in position to do a proper center maneuver. This is not intended as a first step in getting rid of turnaround but rather creating a progression in the learning process.

      John Gayer


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