These comments are not aimed at any particular person. I honestly hope not to offend anybody! This is also very long and I apologize. Most of you probably have far more interesting business to attend to than to read my ramblings. If so, skip to the bottom...
<br><br>There are many absolutely talented people in SA/IMAC. The talent, precision, and polish are certainly NOT exclusive to NSRCA pattern. They are the exception, though, as most people don't have the dedication to perfect minutia within the routine. Watching people fly the one-roll 360 degree turn, starting from inverted, from the IMAC Advanced Class a few years ago was poetry in motion.
<br><br>I recently moved to NE region, and left my IMAC planes with my father and brothers as I lack the storage space and no longer have access to the "family airplane trailer". I didn't know what to expect with respect to flying fields, only to learn I have two fields within 7 miles of my house. The Waterboro Pattern meet takes place 25 miles from my home.
<br><br>I have flown "pattern" since I helped my father build a Curare 25 years ago, but never participated in an organized meet until starting IMAC in the late 90's. I have always been drawn to the precision aspect of flying. I had the opportunity to fly a friend's Gator RC 2m Giles Competition a few years ago and was again enchanted by the precision, "lightness", and relative ease with which it flew. I knew I had to try pattern again, even though pattern planes are significantly smaller than anything else I flew and "...as everybody knows, bigger flies better".
<br><br>Many of the sport SA pilots (SIMAC/SSA?) people started flying the planes the same way they flew their .46-powered Ugly Stick, flitting around and hovering all the time. Poorly-muffled 50cc engines, screaming in a hover 5 feet off the ground, make poor neighbors. No wonder flying fields are disappearing.
<br><br>Now to my points:<br><br>When I grew up skiing in the west I always had a certain amount of disdain for snowboarders. I thought they could buy a board and equipment, and learn to ride reasonably well in a very short amount of time. THEY didn't have respect for anything or anybody around them. THEY were oblivious to the rules of the mountain. THEY were always blind to anything happening on the heel-side. THEY were the dangerous, unpredictable, and skittish ones lacking any talent. I thought I was precision in motion, with the beautiful form acquired through hundreds of days of skiing with world-class skiers.
<br><br>I learned to snowboard, but I knew the rules of the mountain, always watched out for others, etc. THEY couldn't be as conscientious as I and didn't deserve to BE on the same mountain. <br><br>That all changed when I became a ski instructor at an all-user ski resort. I learned that the snowboard is more similar to a pair of skis than different. Body mechanics of skiing and snowboarding were surprisingly similar, only the snowboarder is rotated a bit. I began to see things from a snowboarder's perspective, that a snowboard can carve like no ski can. A snowboard retains energy better than any ski. A carving snowboard is powerful, controlled, and far more capable than skis. I was blinded by my own ego, and failed to see the strengths of the snowboard.
<br><br>Of course, I could care less about the flippy-floppy stuff, but the precision carving is sheer poetry.<br><br>Now let me tie this in to model airplanes.<br><br>NSRCA Pattern MUST NOT abandon the precision factor. I don't think making the difficult sequences more user-friendly by relaxing requirements will attract more people to pattern events.
<br><br>Pattern fliers have a reputation of snobbery. Whether this is justified or not is immaterial. (In my experience it is NOT justified, most serious pattern fliers I have met are wonderfully helpful and supportive people.) The fact still remains.
<br><br>I propose a middle ground. Rather than look down at the "checkbook pilots" with the plug-and-play 30% ARF Yak 54's "hucking" rolling harriers and torque rolls until their engines cook themselves ("but DA has a lifetime warranty..."), why not suggest a "checkbook pattern alternative"? There are many on the market. The Ultra-RC Icepoint, OTOP Dream 110 ($299 now at planesplus), WM Groovy and Zen planes, and Global Excelleron come to mind. Let them know about cheaper engine alternatives, rather than just the
1.60DZ or OS 1.40. RCU is chock full of used, competitive planes at reasonable prices.<br><br>Some day take your backup plane to the field and play pass-the-transmitter with a couple of the "checkbook" guys. Maybe they will appreciate it, maybe not. But those who appreciate precision - the ability to fly horizon-to-horizon slow rolls, to fly with minimal mixing and maximum "smoothness", to maintain a sense of mastery and control over the aircraft at all times - will have a new-found respect for the sport and just might show up at the next contest. In fact, he may even beat you! "Checkbook Pilots" just might have enough room in the budget to put a few in the hangar. When the pattern planes start selling faster, the market will respond! Perhaps we will one day see page after page of ads in the mags for pattern designs.
<br><br>Share some stick time. It just might touch a few hearts, minds, and souls...<br><br>Brett<br><br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/2/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ed Alt</b> <<a href="mailto:ed_alt@hotmail.com">
ed_alt@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="direction: ltr;">
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Brett:</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">I think there's really a couple of tiers of SA
pilots, with some very polished precision flyers in the top ranks. You are
right though, there's also a good sized contingent that handle their sleds the
way you describe. Often, they are the "checkbook pilots" who recently
arrived on the scene and are just plopping recipes together and playing follow
the leader as best they can. Dave Michael made some excellent points, one
of which I would dub the "fade factor" with SA pilots. Everything he said
was right on - the planes have great appeal, they get tons of press, you see
them everywhere etc. So it attracts the masses. To a degree, that's
great because it does help everything grow at a rapid pace. On the other
hand, it can lead to an implosion, such as what seems to currently be happening
in the NE region. When all you have to do is buy your way in, the
event tends to attract larger numbers of people with no particular awareness or
concern over what it takes to be an actual modeler involved with precision
aerobatics. That's what it seems like from here at least.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Dave had some great ideas about promoting Pattern,
which have mostly worked for IMAC / SA. I think that the main thing that
we have to avoid is anything that would veer us away from concentration on
precision, which is where IMAC has led the SA rules recently. Sequence design
has also run amok with IMAC calling the shots every year over what goes in the
AMA rulebook, resulting in what amounts to variations on methods to display snap
rolls to the crowd. It's a lazy way to run up the K-factors in the
sequences, which has become even more problematic for them since they have
shortened the sequences to about 10 figures per class. Mess up one snap in
a high K figure and you are done, hence they have done ever more to encourage
snap cheats, all the while they valiantly attempt to teach otherwise in judging
clinics. For proof, c</font><font face="Arial" size="2">heck a couple of the
RCU experts forums, where they describe how they do snap cheats to help
teach the masses. That's what SA pilots are going to school on for the
most part. </font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">We can learn a bunch from IMAC, good and
bad.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">Ed</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div>----- Original Message ----- </div>
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<b>From:</b>
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