[NSRCA-discussion] 2015 proposed sequences

[John Ford]

The issue is whether a pilot is OK (motivated, happy, etc) with flying a sequence that contains elements beyond their skill level. 
The extreme limit of the situation would be if all 100 pilots at the Nats agreed to fly F-15, the spread of scores would obviously be wide, because for some, there would be many zeros, and for others, many tens. However, faced with such a steep learning curve, would a current Intermediate pilot stick with it long enough to ever achieve a clean "F" flight with no zeros? In some countries, flying pattern has (or had) that same reality attached to it. 
In the AMA Pattern world, we are genetically bred to think that being in Advanced necessarily implies we can successfully fly all the elements. Does this need to be the case?
So, it may mean that we need to get used to the occasional zero or five. Harder to fly, easier to judge, but different rewards and less instant gratification, maybe. As long as pilots keep doing their best, it probably won't change who ultimately gets first, second, or third, however.

On the other topic, I think that limiting ourselves to a ceiling or footprint in the design of maneuvers is a slippery slope, especially since it is almost impossible to enforce or police.  
More than likely, pattern and a host of other model disciplines that routinely exceed 400 feet will continue to exist, simply because they are historically part of the nature of the discipline, and hard to enforce/punish "constructively". 
I agree with many who believe that eventually, the FAA will ask us and our planes to be licensed (or at least formally registered) to use the airspace. That will be the end of that discussion. To paraphrase Capone, "you get a lot further with a dollar and a nice word than you do with just a nice word".

John



On Aug 18, 2014, at 10:58 AM, Anthony Romano via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

> 
> After several flights of the proposed schedules, I started writing this thinking that both Advanced and Masters are too hard. Reading a comment about the range of scores for the top eight from this years Nats made me rethink my position. The difference in Advanced was about 40 points per round and Masters was 109 points per round. If you look at the top seven Masters drops to 49 points per round. Pretty tight competition when compared to the FAI finals having a difference of 203 points per round. 
> 
> Does this help us? Do harder schedules make judging easier by forcing egregious errors instead of requiring judges to scour each maneuver for every little wing bobble? Just looking for a discussion not an argument. 
> 
> On a totally opposite point, given the attention that our hobby is getting from external eyes, particularly in the area of altitude limits do we want to be designing sequences with figure nines and hourglasses?  We seem to be pulling out some of the worst FAI maneuvers to add to our sequences. Agreeing with the earlier comment that turnaround was supposed to reduce our footprint yet we continue to see FAI using rolling circles, KE triangles, vertical eights in sequences. We should not follow this error.
>  
> 
> Anthony Romano
> 
> 
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