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<DIV>
<DIV>David,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>When I saw "LONG" I took a peek. I didn't read it I must admit, not wanting
to break my own rule on long messages on this list. BUT I was so impressed with
the length of your message, I had to send you a note of commendation. BG</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Are you sure it isn't a Preable to your Masters Thesis in Pattern? Just
busting buddy</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Matt</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/27/2006 11:59:50 AM Eastern Standard Time,
dflynt@verizon.net writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>There
has been a lot of discussion about the cost of pattern equipment and<BR>how it
might be the cause of low participation and low rate of recruiting<BR>new
pilots. There are several flavors of the claim that I have
heard:<BR><BR>1. If pattern were not expensive, more rc pilots
would participate.<BR>2. Pattern is not necessarily expensive,
but there is an impression that you<BR>must have an expensive plane to
win. If we could just get the message<BR>across that you do not need an
expensive airplane, then more rc pilots would<BR>participate.<BR>3.
It is bad to spend a lot of money on pattern equipment, because that
will<BR>cause others to purchase more expensive equipment.<BR>4.
You cannot win with a low cost airplane (aka roach – nothing personal).<BR>You
need a fancy, expensive airplane to win.<BR>5. You should build
your own airplane, preferably using wood, because that<BR>will lower your
cost.<BR>6. Lowering cost is the key to saving
pattern.<BR><BR><BR>I disagree with all of these viewpoints, and I will argue
why I feel this<BR>way. But first, let me say a couple of things.
1) I like a bargain and<BR>value as much as anybody. Nobody throws money
away. Have you ever<BR>purchased something and paid more than the retail
price because you felt<BR>that you were cheating the business? Nobody
does that. We all hunt for<BR>bargains. So low cost is a great
thing. 2) Please don’t take anything I<BR>say personal or as criticism,
even if I use inflammatory terms such as<BR>roach. I don’t mean to upset
anybody. It is just a discussion.<BR><BR>Let’s start with number
1: If pattern were not expensive, more rc pilots<BR>would
participate.<BR><BR>This one is easy. Golf is arguably at least as
expensive as pattern. It<BR>can be done on the cheap, but for the most
part there are people in every<BR>corner of the United States that play golf
and spend many thousands on it<BR>each year. They buy expensive
equipment, pay for lessons, join country<BR>clubs, and spend lots of money –
much more than pattern pilots on average.<BR>There are many more golfers than
even RC pilots. There is wealth in this<BR>country, but even the not so
wealthy play golf and spend big bucks. If cost<BR>were a barrier, then
there would be fewer golfers than pattern pilots. But<BR>there are more
golfers than pattern pilots; therefore cost is not a barrier.<BR><BR>Number 2:
Pattern is not necessarily expensive, but there is an impression<BR>that you
must have an expensive plane to win. If we could just get the<BR>message
across that you do not need an expensive airplane, then more rc<BR>pilots
would participate.<BR><BR>It is true that pattern equipment is not necessarily
expensive. Probably<BR>$1000, depending on the servos is the minimum
competitive setup in upper<BR>classes, and this could be very
competitive.<BR><BR>Let me try this argument. Consider the piano.
How many people play?<BR>Probably not very many. A piano can be
expensive or inexpensive. You can<BR>buy a used piano or an electric
keyboard for a few hundred dollars. Now if<BR>I offer to give you a
Steinway Model D piano, would you give up pattern and<BR>start playing
piano? You're probably not going to give up pattern
just<BR>because I subsidize a piano for you. If you were truly
interested in piano,<BR>you would figure out a way to start playing.
Subsidizing is completely<BR>unnecessary. The same is true for
pattern.<BR><BR>Now, do you need a Steinway to play well? I can tell you
it is a better<BR>instrument than most. So what. You don't need a
Steinway to play the piano<BR>well. You need to practice to play
well. But let's say you like the way a<BR>Steinway feels and sounds, and
it makes you happy to have one, and you don't<BR>mind spending the extra money
on one. Is there something wrong with that?<BR>In other words, if you
buy a Steinway, do you really think somebody else who<BR>is sincerely
interested in piano would somehow become frustrated and never<BR>play because
you can afford a Steinway but they cannot? That's ridiculous.<BR>Anybody
who is sincerely interested will play the piano whether or not they<BR>can
afford a Steinway. The same is true with pattern.<BR><BR>Number 3:
It is bad to spend a lot of money on pattern equipment, because<BR>that will
cause others to purchase more expensive equipment.<BR><BR>There are a lot of
people on this list that have this philosophy. I think<BR>it all started
with Dick Hansen. He is the leader of the cost crusade.<BR>>From
talking to him over the years and from reading his posts on RC<BR>Universe, he
takes this to the extreme: It if cannot be done cheap, then it<BR>should
not be done at all. Dick is a true leader and innovator in
pattern.<BR>He has proven over and over that you don’t need to spend a lot of
money on<BR>equipment. This just goes to show you that if one person
spends a lot of<BR>money on equipment, not everybody else will. There
are a lot of people in<BR>the cost crusade camp (maybe we should call them
roachies for short), so<BR>just because one person spends a lot of money on
equipment, evidence<BR>suggests that not everybody else will.<BR><BR>Electric
is a good example. Well, maybe less so, because it appears that<BR>the
costs of electric can compete with the cost of IC. But just
for<BR>argument, let’s say electric is much more expensive than IC. As
an example,<BR>I do not have any near term plans to switch to electric.
I’m just having<BR>too much fun with IC, and I now have a 2c pattern ship, and
one with a<BR>160DZ. As much as I complain about how difficult it is to
tune a 2c, I am<BR>interested in it. Electric is also interesting, but I
don’t think it scales<BR>that well. It is great for foamies, but I still
think the batteries and<BR>motors are on the edge of stability. 65 amps
is a lot of current! The<BR>batteries also scare me because of cost and
fire potential. But mostly, I<BR>don’t really think electric is all that
great and definitely not necessary<BR>to win. Advocates for electric say
the maintenance costs are much less for<BR>electric because of less
vibration. I’m all for low vibration. It can<BR>damage your
airframe and servos. But if you get 2000 flights on a
composite<BR>airframe with a DZ, and you need to service your servo gears and
pots every<BR>100 flights, what is the cost difference between replacing your
battery<BR>packs every 100 flights? You can afford to buy a backup set
of servos, and<BR>then just send them in for service. And after 2000
flights, you might be<BR>ready to try a new airframe. It certainly does
not owe you anything after<BR>2000 flights. The point is not whether
Electric is good or bad, but that it<BR>is not necessary, and not everybody is
going to follow and switch to<BR>Electric. That’s the
point.<BR><BR>Number 4 – my favorite topic: You cannot win with a low
cost airplane (aka<BR>roach – nothing personal). You need a fancy,
expensive airplane to win.<BR><BR>Let’s all get on the same page as to what a
roach is. A roach is simply an<BR>airplane that is hard on the
eyes. I am not the founder of the term.<BR>Dennis Galloway, a former FAI
pilot in California and good friend of mine<BR>may have coined the term.
He once did an air show in Santa Maria, and he<BR>did a knife-edge pass under
a 6-foot high limbo bar with an old, beat up<BR>Goldberg Ultimate
Biplane. He said, “I may crash, but this old roach owes<BR>me
nothing.” He made it under the bar not just once, but twice. He
had not<BR>planned on doing it twice, but I did not have the record button
turned on<BR>his video camera during the first pass. Another typical
characteristic of<BR>an old roach is that it just never dies. The
converse is unfortunately<BR>true – the brand new expensive airplane is
somehow drawn more powerfully to<BR>earth to its demise than the roach.
It is a cruel twist of fate, similar to<BR>having a pretty wife, but an
unhappy, short marriage.<BR><BR>Not all scratch built planes are
roaches. In fact, most are not. Some<BR>examples are in
order: All of the Japanese planes that are seen at the<BR>world’s
competitions are NOT roaches. These set the standard of beauty
and<BR>craftsmanship, and are typically hand crafted from balsa wood.
Naruke Hobby<BR>and Oxai airplanes are not roaches. A good example of a
roach is the<BR>Piedmont Focus or Focus II, especially one that has seen too
many hard<BR>landings and has a good deal of hangar rash from throwing it
carelessly into<BR>the back of a pickup over a couple of years. Perhaps
the best example of a<BR>roach is the Insight. You would need to work
really hard to design a more<BR>unsightly pattern plane. But if it flies
well, and holds up well, then it<BR>is a good pattern plane.<BR><BR>So, can
you win with a roach or inexpensive plane? I’m sure everybody
has<BR>examples of being beaten by somebody with a roach. It’s not how
the plane<BR>looks, it is how it flies, and how well the pilot moves the
sticks. I like<BR>a fancy French composite plane, but I will be the
first to admit that you<BR>can win with a roach. It’s proven all the
time. Except at the worlds. You<BR>won’t see many roaches in the
top ten, but I speculate that that is because<BR>the top ten prefer to fly
non-roaches, and they can, so they do. But a<BR>roach can fly as well as
any plane. Look at the results for the Focus. Don<BR>Szczur won
the Nats with it. That is a darn good flying roach.<BR><BR>Number 5 --
You should build your own airplane, preferably using wood,<BR>because that
will lower your cost.<BR><BR>I’ve nothing against wood or saving money.
However, saving time can be more<BR>valuable than saving money. Also, I
feel that there are not enough good<BR>choices for wood pattern kits. If
there were something that looked like a<BR>Znline Oxalys or PL Partner, was
constructed out of wood like the Exclusive<BR>Modelbau kits, HAD A NOSE RING,
then I would buy and build one. The lazer<BR>cut EM kits are the cat’s
meow. These are very light for their size, fit<BR>perfectly, are
engineered well, and use excellent wood. I don’t really like<BR>the
sheeted and painted scratch built Typhoons and varieties. There is
too<BR>much work and too heavy. You don’t need all that sheeting for
strength and<BR>rigidity. That is just for looks. I would like to
see a hogged out light<BR>ply fuse that can be covered with transparent film,
and no special jigs or<BR>finishing techniques required. There is a
market for that. EM should<BR>produce a pattern kit, or somebody should,
but update the design from the<BR>Typhoon. A tall, wide fuse is the
correct design, all lazer cut. Built-up<BR>or foam core wings – either
one.<BR><BR>Some math is in order. Let’s say you make $100,000 salary
per year. That<BR>means your time is worth $50.00 per hour. You
could do side work in<BR>addition to your 40 hours per week, and bring home a
lot of extra money. If<BR>you spend 200 to 300 hours building one
airplane, then your $150 roach<BR>really cost you $10,000 to $15,000 to
build. I like building airplanes, but<BR>I hate spending all that time
building because of the math. I simply lose<BR>too much opportunity
money in the deal. Painting an airframe takes me about<BR>60 or more
hours. It’s just not worth it. Would you build your own
car,<BR>house, piano? Very few people do because it consumes too much
time. It may<BR>lower the cost, but you may lose ten fold in time.
That’s why you buy<BR>products. You trade money for products because it
is cheaper than making it<BR>yourself. A $3000 Oxai ARF, is a way better
value to me than building<BR>myself. Do the math. Even if your
time is worth only $20 per hour, you<BR>come out way ahead, and you get a much
nicer airplane.<BR><BR>I know people that spend 200 to 300 hours of their time
on real estate<BR>investments, and flip a home or two each year for a tidy
profit of $50,000.<BR>That roach could be costing you $50,000. You might
want to boast about how<BR>much you saved over a $6000 Naruke Hobby airframe,
but to me, you lose<BR>$50,000 dollars each time you build a roach.
Personally, I don’t see a big<BR>future in scratch building. Do the
math.<BR><BR>Number 6: Lowering cost is the key to saving pattern.<BR><BR>The
major expense in pattern is getting to contests. Going to the
Nats<BR>would probably cost me $4000 to $5000 in gas, lodging, food, wear and
tear<BR>on my Minivan, and two weeks of vacation. I can trade the whole
experience<BR>for a ready to fly Oxai. Attending local contests is just
as expensive,<BR>except I don’t need to burn the vacation time.
Attending six local contests<BR>costs me $2400: 600 miles average round
trip at $3.00 per gallon, 20 mpg =<BR>$540, $0.10 per mile wear and tear =
$360, lodging for 12 nights at $75.00<BR>per night = $900, and food out at
$100 per event = $600. Flying a $1000<BR>plane versus a $5000 plane is
going to help. If that is what you need to<BR>do, then there should be
little excuse for not showing up at a contest. The<BR>cost crusaders
talk about lowering cost of equipment, but completely ignore<BR>the major
expense of getting to contests. Despite the costs, we get to<BR>contests
because we enjoy it enough to part with our money.<BR><BR>I really don’t think
it is expense that drives people away from pattern.<BR>Look at the golf
example. There just is not that many that people who are<BR>interested
in pattern, or rc for that matter. This could change, but there<BR>will
never be as many pattern pilots as there are golfers.<BR><BR>Part of the fun
with Pattern is playing with equipment. Whether you fly a<BR>roach, or a
$6000 Naruke airframe, we all share a passion with the<BR>equipment. I
think that is why we discuss it so much – which power<BR>technology is best,
and how much it costs, whether it is necessary are<BR>frequent topics of
interest. In conclusion, I would like to say that it is<BR>OK to scratch
build, and OK to not. It is OK to spend very little, and OK<BR>to spend
a lot. The amount you spend has no impact on the health of
pattern<BR>and its survival. This is an entirely orthogonal
matter.<BR><BR>If you got this far through my note, I would be interested to
hear what you<BR>think. Thanks.<BR><BR>David<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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