[NSRCA-dist7] Fwd: Season Championship Thoughts

Sat Feb 14 09:12:52 AKST 2015

Speaking as a recent sportsman, I'd say the sportsman pilots fall into the
following two general classes:

1.  Club fliers -- people who like pattern, but aren't into the competition
"circuit" and fly at one or two local-ish events.  This is what I *thought*
I was going to be in 2011 when I flew my first pattern contest at Tomcats.
I enjoyed it and couldn't make it to Hollister, so I drove up to Sacramento
for Frank's contest.  I was pretty sure that was the farthest I would ever
go for a contest.  Turns out, I was really a class 2 pilot.  I found that
out when I drove out to the fresno district championships.  I didn't even
know about the point system yet, but I didn't really care either -- I knew
I didn't have a chance to win, but it was another contest and I wanted
another contest!

2.  New addicts -- Sure, we're new to this stuff, but that just means the
fire burns that much hotter!  We're not jaded + cynical about anything yet,
we love the camaraderie of the contest and the adrenaline high of flying in
front of judges. We get to every contest our schedule and budget allows.
In early 2012 I was wondering if anyone local was driving out to the
Phoenix contest, I wanted to go but didn't want to drive alone...  Most are
not yet so committed as to hit every contest, but if it's within about 200
miles, we're in.  We're smokin' the pattern weed, but we haven't yet
ventured into the harder stuff...

Peter+

On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:36 AM, Chris Fitzsimmons via NSRCA-dist7 <
nsrca-dist7 at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:

> Tony does bring up a good point here for the sportsman pilot. How does
> this help getting new people interested? Now they have to attend an extra
> contest? Seems to me that would push people away from our sport. Sure, it
> helps the guy in FAI and Masters who can now beat the top guy in that class
> that may not be able to attend that many. But what did you just do to keep
> the sport alive or grow it? Just a thought..
>
> C
>
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 11:10 PM, Anthony Frackowiak via NSRCA-dist7 <
> nsrca-dist7 at lists.nsrca.org> wrote:
>
>> So if I have a problem with something the NSRCA District VP is doing I
>> should just shut up and run for office? Sounds a might extreme. I guess all
>> that complain about Obama should just shut up and run for president. Think
>> that would work?
>>
>> I asked earlier what would be the determining factors for success/failure
>> with this change. Would it be one pilot unable to try for the Champs? Would
>> it be 10? And how would you know?
>>
>> I hope others have noted this trend. Most of the people replying are
>> Masters pilots. Just Pete in Intermediate and Chris I think in Sportsman.
>> In my club I work with a lot of Sportsman and Intermediate pilots. Most of
>> them are too intimidated to respond to this. Or they are not even aware of
>> this list. When I talk to them most do not like the change. Or they will
>> just go with the flow. But I would really hate to see even one of them
>> unable to meet that 4 contest requirement and miss out on the Champs. Many
>> that I work with have a hard enough time doing three. When I talked to Sean
>> I brought up the idea of just increasing to 4 for Masters and F3A and
>> leaving the other classes alone. That didn't seem to fly but I think it is
>> something that should be considered.
>>
>> Tony
>>
>> On Feb 13, 2015, at 10:21 PM, Wallace, Bill via NSRCA-dist7 wrote:
>>
>> Since it will be a cold day In hell before I am ever in the running for
>> Dist Champ, I have very ambivalent feelings on this.  I understand and
>> applaud Sean for trying something different within the Dist.  I know as
>> well as anyone that it is next to impossible to get any significant changes
>> to happen within our organization.  That being said, I don’t think we
>> should stop trying.  So, since Sean is our VP, and has the authority to
>> make these types of changes within the Dist.  I say we give it a try, if it
>> doesn’t work, we can always go back to the way it was next year.  And if
>> anyone really has any heartburn as to how Sean is running the Dist., all
>> you have to do is put your name in for the next election, and if enough
>> people agree with you – you can make whatever changes you want then.  Just
>> my 2 cents.
>>
>> *Bill Wallace*
>> *Commercial Sales Manager*
>> *Bridgestone Commercial Solutions*
>> *4000 E. Mission Blvd.*
>> *Ontario, CA  91761*
>> *Cell Phone - 951-385-2605 <951-385-2605>*
>> *Fax number - 615-493-2333 <615-493-2333>*
>>
>> <image001.png> <http://www.trucktires.com/><image002.png>
>> <http://retreadinstead.com/>  <image003.jpg>
>> <http://www.ecopiatrucktires.com/>
>> *                                   http://www.ecopiatrucktires.com
>> <http://www.ecopiatrucktires.com/>*
>>
>> *From:* NSRCA-dist7 [mailto:nsrca-dist7-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] *On
>> Behalf Of *joncarter60 via NSRCA-dist7
>> *Sent:* Friday, February 13, 2015 11:01 AM
>> *To:* NSRCA D7 List
>> *Subject:* [NSRCA-dist7] Fwd: Season Championship Thoughts
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Jon Carter <jon.x.carter at oracle.com>
>> Date:02/13/2015 10:57 AM (GMT-08:00)
>> To: "Jonathan Carter (joncarter60 at comcast.net)" <joncarter60 at comcast.net>
>> Cc:
>> Subject: Season Championship Thoughts
>>
>> *NSRCA District 7 Season Championship Thoughts*
>>
>>
>> There has been some discussion on the D7 list lately regarding the
>> changes that Sean is implementing this year for the NSRCA season
>> championship award. I think we need to mention what it is that the season
>> championship should represent. In my opinion, it’s more than just picking
>> the best pilot on a given day. It should represent a “season” of
>> competition with all that goes along with that. You know the stuff that
>> makes our sport great. (Flying, BS’ing, Saturday night dinners, helping out
>> other pilots, calling, teasing other pilots, etc. etc.!) Now, given our
>> format for the season champion I think we have a good balance between
>> picking the best season competitor and picking the best pilot. We generally
>> have the top two, three or four pilots all going into the season
>> championship essentially tied on points so it often does come down to who
>> has the “stuff” for that one big contest! Sean’s initial proposal discussed
>> at the AMA Expo was to increase the number of contests that had points
>> counted from 3 to 5. There was much discussion with a slight majority
>> thinking that 5 contests were too many to count. There was more discussion
>> and a number of 4 was proposed. Most people present seemed to think this
>> was a good number. Sean also is allowing 2 “out of district contests” to
>> count towards a D7 pilot’s total. This is aimed to assist some of our D7
>> pilots who live farther away from most of the D7 contests but are closer to
>> some adjacent district contests. I support both of these modifications.
>>
>>
>>
>> Just for grins, I went and looked at how many contests the pilots in
>> different classes attended last year. This is for all district pilots in
>> all classes. Here is the data.
>>
>>
>> *Class*
>> *Average # of contests attended in 2015 by D7 pilots*
>> Sportsman
>> 4.8
>> Intermediate
>> 6.2
>> Advanced
>> 5.1
>> Masters
>> 5.2
>> FAI “Silver”
>> 6.8
>> FAI-F3A
>> 3.8
>>
>>
>>
>> I think this shows that FAI pilots need to come out and fly at some more
>> D7 contests!!! Except for them, everyone already attends at least 4
>> contests a year anyway! I then looked at “how many contests did the pilots
>> who actually attended the season championship go to during the year”
>>
>>
>> *Class*
>> *Average # of contests attended in 2015 by D7 pilots who attended the
>> season championship*
>> Sportsman
>> 6.6
>> Intermediate
>> 6.8
>> Advanced
>> 7.0
>> Masters
>> 6.2
>> FAI “Silver”
>> 6.7
>> FAI-F3A
>> 4.0
>>
>>
>>
>> Interesting! Again, FAI is the outlier but all of the other classes go to
>> at least 6 contests per year! I didn’t crunch the data for other years but
>> I looked them over and they appear pretty similar to 2015.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now, expense has been mentioned and that certainly is a factor in these
>> difficult economic times. As you can see from the data though people are
>> already going to enough contests! With the addition of allowing two out of
>> D7 contests to assist those pilots who are less centrally located I really
>> do not think this will have a negative economic impact on our pilots. I
>> really think that the relatively slight modification that Sean has made to
>> our season championship scoring system is a positive step towards
>> reinforcing attendance at local contests albeit, mostly symbolic according
>> to the data.
>>
>>
>>
>> Another item that has been mentioned is where to have the District
>> Championship? When I first started flying in the District it moved around
>> quite a bit. I remember one in Las Vegas where it was freezing cold and
>> blowing a gale for the 14 pilots who attended! (We got in one day of
>> flying!) I also was at a championship contest in Prado that had a good
>> turnout but it snowed on Saturday night! (Also a 1 day!) It seems that a
>> central location with, as much as possible, reliable weather in the late
>> October timeframe would be ideal. Arvin has certainly fit that bill very
>> well recently as has Fresno. My personal opinion is that if we want to move
>> it around some that is great! Maybe a little further south some years,
>> maybe a little further north, maybe we even go crazy and have Gary or John
>> arrange something in AZ!!! The point being that it really seems Sean is
>> open to moving it around to places that make sense. When he first published
>> the preliminary season schedule for 2015 in November of 2014 there was a
>> question mark on the location of the district championship. That is the
>> time to approach Sean and your club to formulate plans. As far as I know
>> the only clubs/people that offered to host it were Fresno and Arvin. Since
>> we had done Fresno last year Sean chose Arvin. I think that is a great
>> field with (usually) great weather and an active group of pattern flyers!
>> Sounds good to me!
>>
>>
>>
>> In summation I want to thank and congratulate Sean for doing a great job
>> as District VP! He has reached out to pilots and solicited input from all
>> and made reasoned, considerate decisions. Just like we elected him to do!
>> Our district is the envy of many others for our weather, our contests, our
>> fun and our great people! Let’s keep it that way.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jon Carter
>>
>> Ex District 7 VP!
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Chris Fitzsimmons
> Team F3A Unlimited
> Team BJ Aircraft
> Team Airtronics
> 08/12 D7 Masters Champion
>
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>

-- 
Director, Fixed Wing Flight Training
Santa Clara County Model Aircraft Skypark
Associate Vice President, Academy of Model Aeronautics District X
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