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<DIV>I think only Troy Newman could take him on word count.....that's definitely
thesis level.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><VBG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>-Mike</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=Rcmaster199@aol.com
href="mailto:Rcmaster199@aol.com">Rcmaster199@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=nsrca-discussion@lists.nsrca.org
href="mailto:nsrca-discussion@lists.nsrca.org">nsrca-discussion@lists.nsrca.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, February 27, 2006 10:03
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Equipment
cost and partiicpation -- adifferent viewpo...</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<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>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></FONT>
<P>
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