[NSRCA-discussion] Anthony Manifesto/pattern participation

Fri Nov 4 11:49:43 AKDT 2016

As Anthony said, bear with me, there’s a point to be made…………………..

I have been reticent to post this because I have been out of pattern for a while now. But then I started thinking maybe that’s the real issue, there are a whole bunch of long term pattern participants who are no longer on the scene. Some were pretty fierce competitors, some were more casual folks like me. But the bottom line is they are gone. Where did the people go?

I don’t think that the pattern community will ever be able to recruit new talent as fast as it loses current participants. People naturally tend to enter and exit pastime activities. As new activities enter the landscape, those activities will inherently dilute the pool of available participants. Pattern has always been a relatively small niche in the relatively small R/C niche of pastime activities. 

Pattern is very time consuming, the time to practice, the time at contests, the time building/working on the plane, on and on and on. Given that “fixed” time: job, family, home maintenance, social commitments, is set in stone that leaves “free” time. If the time it takes to be competitive exceeds free time, well you do the math.  

And it ain’t easy! If and when people try a competitive activity as a hobby there is an inherent human nature expectation of some level of success. Then there are a lot of folks that also require near immediate gratification. Generally, in pattern that ain’t gonna happen!

So when you have someone that’s been around for a long time and they disappear it begs the question, “Where did the people go?”.

I flew pattern for over 20 years. I first got into pattern in Nashville, TN with my son. There was a large contingent of Pattern folks in the area at the time. My son, Mike, was 12 when we started pattern and going to contests was a family affair.  At that time my job was fairly stressful and I put in a lot of hours. With raising a family thrown in there was never enough time to practice. When Mike went off to college and it was just me, flying time became even more difficult to find because I had lost my best flying partner. 

I moved to the Dallas, TX area in 1998 and again I was lucky that there were a lot of local pattern people to spend time with. Texas was a hot bed of pattern activity at that time. I would go to 6 – 8 contests a year, all within a 6 hour drive. Average attendance would be 30 to 40 at any contest. There would be 8 – 15 people just in Masters, and 6 of them would have been in the top 10 at the previous Nats. 

The last couple of years I flew in contests the best I could do was in the 4 out of 6, 6 out of 9 range in Masters. And that was OK, I was still having fun. I haven’t flown competitively for six years. I still fly my pattern planes, a Symphony and an Aries, both OS 160 powered. I even started practicing the Advance schedule for shucks and grins. 

Why I left Pattern………………….  In no particular order ……………………..

·         When I moved to the Atlanta area and there is NO pattern activity, nobody to practice with. This takes away a BIG reason to go practice, spending time with people who have the same interest and can help you improve.

·         No decent fields to fly pattern / practice nearby. I drive an hour and 15 minutes one way to a field near Talladega AL. 

·         The schedules keep getting more and more difficult. I couldn’t / can’t keep up. I flew Masters for 11 years and the current Masters schedule is way out of my league. I would suggest that a large reason for the decline in Masters is the shear difficulty of the maneuvers.  Compare the current schedule to let’s say 8 – 10 years ago to see what I mean. 

·         I’m now retired and on a fixed income, converting to electric and buying a $2000 to $3000 ARF is financially out of the question. Yes pattern has always been expensive but the price tag to be “competitive” has gotten away from most folks.   

·         As I get older my eyesight, and particularly depth perception, has made it way more challenging.  

As I look at contest results that get posted by Don Ramsey of the events in District 6, I only see 4 or 5 names of people that I flew with just 7 years ago. Where did the people go? The participation is only 50 -60% of what some of those contests use to draw. Where did the people go? 

So, again, I submit that looking for “new blood” may be a fool’s errand. Contact and survey those who have left and find out what drove them away.  And is there anything that would bring them back..   

To those who truly commit the time and dedication it takes to be competitive, I commend you. To those who are less committed, more casual, and are in it because it’s fun, I wish you the best. I got 20+ years of pure enjoyment out of it being a casual participant.

Gene Maurice    

From: NSRCA-discussion [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of W Anthony Abdullah via NSRCA-discussion
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 1:52 PM
To: Dave Burton; General pattern discussion
Cc: General pattern discussion
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Anthony Manifesto/pattern participation

Please hang with me, there is a point to be made.

I love pattern and have participated in the discipline one way or another for the last 25 years including serving as the D4 AVP. Some years I do every local contest, in others years I have done one or none depending on what was going on in "life" at the time.

As I look at my current semi retired situation I realize why participation may be down. For me, it's not cost, or location of the nats, or anything like that. My reality is, in years that I have done well and been competitive, with my limited skill level, I have done NOTHING other than work and pattern. The choice for me is to literally ignore all my other hobbies and interests.

For example, in D4, our flying season usually starts late April with the first contest in early or mid May. That is coincidentally the best time of the year to fish. 

Over the last 18 months in pattern purgatory I have done the following;

1. trained for and competed in 2 physique fitness competitions (placing in both)

2. Caught a monster Crappie, that was 3 ounces short of the fish Ohio record, along with scores of his delicious little brothers

3. Bought a 23 foot long travel camper in which we have started to haul to some of the most beautiful campgrounds in the country

4. Gotten heavily into RC jets, along with flying everything else I own with wings, including planes that handle nothing like my integral.

5. Gone to countless fun flys, scale contests, jet meets, and pylon races

6. Moved out of state and bought a 3175/sq foot house with a pool, that I intend to completely remodel.

7 went on a non airplane related vacation

8. Took my wife out to dinner, watched my niece play basketball, birthday parties, etc

9. Started taking golf lessons

10 bought a professional grade smoker with which I am refining the worlds best smoked salmon recipe

11........

All this and I don't even have kids of my own!

The point is, I could still do many of these things and compete in pattern, but it would be more difficult, trade offs need to be made. Time is our most precious resource, for me to compete the way I want to I would need to fly only pattern from 6pm to 7:30 or 8:00pm three days during the week and much of the weekend starting in the spring. That does not leave a lot of time for much else. I never understood how a guy like Mike Klein with incredible talent could meander in and out of the hobby. Like me and many others he has no ability to enjoy it in moderation.

The only thing that has kept me sort of in, are the AMAZING people and friendships, and staying in advanced. As it is, I can do respectable 4 point rolls, slow roll, top hat, some form of Cuban 8, avalanche, and 1/2 square loops/stall turns with very little practice. If I moved up to masters you would likely never see me again after a contest or two (see long list of guys this has happened to including Dennis B, Frank D, Tom M, etc)

I bring all this up for on simple reason, I love pattern and want to help. If this allows us to think about the problem another way and leads to a creative solution, great! 

IMO, we are focusing our efforts in the wrong direction. I understand trying to bring in new people but I think a better idea is to cater to the competitors we already know love pattern.

How about a "fun" class that's not for beginners, but for advanced or masters level pilots. Familiar fun maneuvers that we have done a thousand times, maneuvers we would stop to watch, a mixture of turn around and non turn around maneuvers.

For off the top of my head example;

1. Take off

2. Avalanche 

3. End to end slow roll with duration bonus (8 seconds like in bull riding of course I don't know how to judge this)

4. Stall turn 8 point roll up, 2 1/2 reversed down

5. Knife edge like slow roll above

You get the idea.

Thanks for hanging with me. 

Anthony

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 4, 2016, at 12:40 PM, Dave Burton via NSRCA-discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

The difference is that in the good old days the NATS was almost all modeling disciplines and not just a Pattern Contest as it is today, even in Muncie. The NATS has never had the same appeal to me since.

I'm not opposed to moving it around the country but IMO Pattern is in a downhill slide and I don't really think moving it around the country will change that. We no longer have the casual competitor as we did in the" good old days" for a lot of reasons relating to cost, maneuver difficulty, and unfortunately the image of elitism.

Dave Burton

From: NSRCA-discussion [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Jeff and Claire via NSRCA-discussion
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 10:52 AM
To: 'Joe Lachowski'; 'General pattern discussion'
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] 2017 NATS

Wow.   Wish I had a nickel for every time in the last 5 years I heard someone say "Sure wish the Nats moved around the country like they did in the good old days.  Remember the <insert one location or another location>  Nats and what a great time we had?"   Mike Harrison has gone out on a limb to create a unique experience again for pattern flyers, the NSRCA and the AMA support that (in fact the AMA hopes other SIG's follow suit) in hopes to break up the "same old thing," make it more interesting and more accessible to various cross-sections across the country.   I would not have guessed there'd be a response like the one below. 

Jeff Worsham            

From: NSRCA-discussion [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Joe Lachowski via NSRCA-discussion
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 8:03 AM
To: General pattern discussion
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] 2017 NATS

I am disappointed in the direction the NSRCA has been going the last 5 years. Instead of focusing on growing participation in pattern as their primary goal it has done things like making sequences more and more difficult and now having alternate venues for the NATS. So tell me how having alternate venues for the NATS grows pattern? Answer is absolutely nothing. It just wastes financial assets. This idea too, will die. Do you honestly think others in the various regions of the country will put in the effort on a regular basis to have a NATS in their region? 

I am done with the NSRCA. I've been a member since the late 80's. My contribution to the event as a CD over 25 years and long time sequence committee member has become a waste of my precious time.  My membership will permanently lapse this time around. I can no longer support an organization that is directionally lost. And you wonder why most of District 2 has left the NSRCA?

  _____  

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