[NSRCA-discussion] unknowns

Wed Sep 23 04:32:32 AKDT 2009

Hi Steve,

Hopefully we'll cross paths in the future, maybe at the 2010 pattern nats.  Thanks for sharing your experience below.  Just to add some more thoughts about the unknowns.  Unknowns invite a "team" approach to flying them successfully.  Most the pilots will take their unknown, and go to their most experienced friend that can read arestii, and ask for it to be deciphered.  Groups of 3-5 pilots will go through and try to get them sorted out.  You then leave the field or dinner thinking you got them right.  Later in the hotel room, you realize that some particular snap & roll combination is "same direction" instead of the typical opposite direction (for instance).  Then, you doubt the whole thing and study it again.  In the morning, you go to your buds and see if they caught the mistake, but then sort of hope the other 'competition' didn't catch it.

So here goes the sequence of events morning of - if you are the person folks are relying on to "call-correctly" for them, it can really cramp your morning.  You will be studying the other classes unknown nearly as much as your own.  If you call for them (sometimes a couple people let's say) before you fly, YOU better have a good caller lined up to help keep you own head straight.  It puts more pressure on you to "call-correctly" for someone, than to fly your own sequence.  It also puts you in an uncomfortable spot to say "no" to the task when you absolutely need to.  You will quickly look around and realize that other pilots have that "super-experienced" caller working with them all the time - maybe for years.  If your flying group doesn't have that, all of you are at the disadvantage.

As the unknown flier - there are tricks to memorizing the sequence (Don S.'s latest video covers one technique nicely for it), but the bottom line is that your caller will make-or-break this round for you, and in short, the contest outcome.  Reading aresti is a skill.  Flying unknowns with the same composure and "presentation" that you fly the knowns with a huge new skill to learn.  If you are really practicing with IMAC dedication, you should probably fly 65% of the knowns, and 35% of learning how your airplane does every other maneuver not in your known.  The benefit is that learning how to approach unknowns and fly them confidently will accelerate your skill growth and make you a better pilot fast.  You knees may shake like you are on the Nationals flight line though!  I always have a good feeling of accomplishment for pulling off a clean unknown, that you don't always have after even a really good known flight.   Unknowns offer a lot and they will make your head stronger for flying, show where your weaknesses as a pilot are, but they come at the price of a lot of studying, dramatic changes in the final pilot positions, and needing a good "team approach" to pull the flights off cleanly.

Thanks,
Jim

From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of steve hannah
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:17 PM
To: General pattern discussion
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] unknowns

I think this thread started as a query into unknowns.  Jim W's post pretty well hit the nail on the head.  Leave the unknowns to IMAC.  When I switched from F3A to IMAC (actually the JR SCAT series) in 2002 I started flying Intermediate and really liked the unknowns.  Flying those unknown sequences was very easy.  I found the degree of difficulty of maneuvers between intermediate and the then F3A sequence to be compatible.  Unknowns were no more difficult and, since I had been flying competitive pattern for 12 years I had little trouble adapting.  I was typically the most experienced pilot in the class so I had little trouble.  Moving up the ladder saw an exponential increase in the degree of difficulty for the maneuvers as well as for the unknowns.  It is true, you have to kick butt in the unknown in order to win.  So, at every contest I would spend saturday night learning and memorizing my unknown.  I'd get the sequence and stick fly it until I fell asleep.  I got to where I really hated that.  It wasn't fun.  Flying Unlimited in 2007, including the TAS, burned me out on this whole thing and cured me of any desire to fly unknowns ever again.

When I started flying pattern again in 2008, it was like a breath of fresh air to me.  The contests were fun again.  I am a competitive guy and I stopped having fun at IMAC contests.  They were just too much work.

Pattern contests are much lower key and relaxing.  IMAC events are hectic.  The unknowns put a cramp on your fun as well.  I would always be thinking at the evening group dinner "I can't have that extra beer, I need to leave NOW in order to have enough time to cram the Unlimited Unknown sequence into memory".  That sucked.

As for the never ending debate of which is better/tougher/more precise, I'll say this.  Flying Pattern made me a good IMAC pilot.  Then, flying IMAC made me a much better Pattern flier.  They're all good.  Everyone should try both.  Just leave the unknowns to IMAC, Keep them easy enough to memorize in 10 minutes in the morning so you can have a few beers and shoot the bull with your buddies at night.

Steve
On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Bill's Email <wemodels at cox.net<mailto:wemodels at cox.net>> wrote:
J N Hiller wrote:

Thanks guys that will make it a little easier.  I will then assume that the slash marks through the loop only indicate centering the rolling element.

It looked nice through 90 degrees of ark with a very slow rate but I only got one out of maybe a dozen attempts that looked decent.

Jim

Those marks are from the Aresti catalog and indicate where on the loop a roll element can be placed.

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