[NSRCA-discussion] My Head is Spinning

[S. McNickle]

I agree with Ron. (Can't believe I just said that). 
Trying to grow participation by dumbing down the classes above Sportsman will cost us pilots. My club used to have monthly fun flies with lots of interesting events and we had good turnouts for a season or so. Then people started saying the 'good' guys always won, so we dumbed down the events until they were a joke, some of them depending on a roll of the dice. Now nobody does it. 

Sportsman at the Nats? I think it's a terrible idea. It would just lead to guys camping in Sportsman, "Sportsman Special" airplanes and the development of a 'touring pro' bunch of Sportsmen...people who should be flying Intermediate. 
I'm not even convinced that we should be crowning a district champ in Sportsman, we'd be better off if it was populated by club guys who seldom travelled. 
Sportsman is just to give pilots a chance to fly a schedule in front of judges to see if they like it. 

SPA at the Nats? Well, the control line speed guys do an unofficial one-design event (Perky) and it seems to work, but I think it would be a good idea to see if we can pull off a non-Muncie Nats before we start adding anything. 

Scott 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ron Hansen via NSRCA-discussion" <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> 
To: "NSCRA Discussion List" <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org> 
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2016 4:34:23 PM 
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] My Head is Spinning 



Holly crap. The thread about the 2017 NATs, the Sportsman tread, the Anthony Manifesto and a few others are all over the place. The general consensus I heard prior to these threads is basically to leave well enough alone which is basically where I come down on all of this. I think Sportsman, Intermediate and Advance are fine where they are and shouldn’t get any more or less difficult. This is a competition so the Sportsman pilot is assumed to have some basic aerobatic competency not someone who just graduated from a trainer. My sense is if you significantly change the rules for the lower classes you will lose a lot of the current regular competitors and if my hunch is correct you won’t attract any more new pilots. 



If we were going to do anything and I know this won’t get any traction it would be to go to a NASCAR set of pattern rules for the AMA classes where everyone flies the same plane, same motor and same servos and same speed controllers. This would allow the one or two designers to be virtually guaranteed plenty of business which should significantly control cost. I know this is a pipe dream but it has merit. 



I also don’t like dumbing down Intermediate and Advance because it gives me the sense that we are the Red Headed Step child of pattern. 



People aren’t leaving because it is too hard they are leaving because they aren’t competitive. 



Ron 






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