Radio Control: Aerobatics
Ron Van Putte 111 Sleepy Oaks Rd., Ft. Walton Beach, FL 32548
Letter from Steve Campbell
"Several of your remarks in the October '92 column have done more to reinforce my negative feelings toward pattern fliers than almost anything I have seen or heard to date.
"At one time I was a national-level competitor in police combat shooting (PPC). Among my more notable accomplishments were winning Master Class at the 1986 Nationals in Des Moines and becoming the Louisiana State Champion in 1989. I relate this not to impress you, but simply to illustrate that I am no stranger to high-level competition.
"I became involved in RC five years ago. I briefly looked into pattern competition, but found it to be an equipment race and full of prima donna crybabies. Just like, come to think of it, PPC shooting.
"Your contention that anyone flying a two-stroke engine is perceived as not a 'top-level' pilot has got to be the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard. Who knows, it may be true. If so, it is a sad reflection on your sport. And as far as certain pilots being considered 'innovative' and immune to conventional wisdom, give me a break. In any endeavor involving man and equal (or nearly so) machines, operator skill will win every time.
"I have been watching the quarreling over various rule changes in all the competitive disciplines. Nowhere is the squabbling greater than in the pattern fraternity. That makes me glad, and sad that what should be open, healthy competition is reduced to those who can't (or won't) avail themselves of the latest edge, crying 'Foul!'
"I quit competitive shooting primarily because of failing eyesight, but also because I was tired of listening to whiners who could not come to grips with the fact that there are others who are more skilled than themselves. My new hobby, I see, is tarred with the same brush."
Response and reflections
Did any of you feel just a bit uncomfortable while reading that? I did. My response to Steve follows:
"Thanks for your letter. However, your view of pattern fliers is not quite correct. Many of the actions you assign to the fliers are really caused by judges. Unfortunately, pattern flying is subject to the same kind of problems that all subjective sports suffer from.
"I'm sure that you've heard a commentator at a diving competition or a gymnastics meet say something like 'He'll get better scores when he pays his dues,' or 'She hasn't got enough name recognition to score well yet.'
"Most of the squabbles we have in pattern competition result from judging problems. The judges who give higher scores to last year's Nats champ just because of who he is rather than how he flies are the problem. The judges who score fliers who use a four-stroke engine higher because the airplane has better vertical performance than a two-stroke-powered airplane, even though vertical performance is not a judging factor, are demonstrating their ignorance.
"Fliers don't want to be first-up in a contest because judges do not score well until they are 'warmed up.' Regardless of whether you think that it's ludicrous for a judge to consider a two-stroke pilot inferior to a four-stroke pilot, enough judges do it to make it a problem. A lot of the things you see pattern fliers do are a result of what the judges do. Nevertheless, these things are the facts of life in pattern competitions.
"Pattern fliers are not blameless when it comes to pettiness. Envy sometimes makes people act in not-so-pleasant ways. I hate it when I hear another FAI flier call Chip Hyde 'Chippie,' because the speaker's envy is showing.
"When you hear a flier criticize another flier's style as though it were a character flaw, you can be sure that the other flier is ahead of him in the standings. These are facts of life—and it doesn't just happen in pattern flying. It happens in all areas of competition.
"Again, thanks for the letter. It made me do some thinking."
And it did make me do some thinking. However, I don't know if there is a way to solve the problems we have in pattern. I also compete in road racing (running), and we just don't have the kind of bickering in that sport that is present in RC pattern competition. That's probably because road racing is an objective sport, and pattern competition is a subjective sport.
Road racing officials make sure that nobody cheats, and it's the runners who determine the results by who crosses the finish line first. In RC pattern, it's the judges who determine the winners. That makes a big difference!
I don't know of a single subjective sport in which there are no complaints about the judges. It's the nature of the sport that there will be judging complaints. If all judges were perfect, competitors would still complain about something the judges did or didn't do. Even though it's not true in all cases, I have to assume that the judges are doing the best job they can. If I can't make that assumption, I might as well stop going to pattern contests.
What we have to work on is increasing the number of competent judges who try to do their judging fairly. If I had an answer to how to accomplish that, I would be worthy of an award.
After being on both sides of the judging situation as a flier and as a judge, I can honestly say that I find it hard to understand the motivation of a judge who is not also a flier. There are many people who only judge. They take their vacation time and spend their money to judge for the rest of us. Now, that's dedication! Even so, some of us question their integrity and their ability. Who do WE think WE are? Where do WE get off acting like that? (The reason I capitalized WE is because I too have been guilty of complaining about some of those judges.)
Now, I don't think I'm turning into a saint, but it's getting so I'm not very tolerant of complainers who never put a nickel's worth of effort into improving the sport. For me, the best way to stop complaining about judges is to go out there and help them. The next time you feel like complaining about judges, try to come up with one way to improve the situation before you criticize. Better yet, if you feel you have something to offer, show up and help with the judging at a contest. If we all do that, maybe the rest of the fliers will stop complaining.
Four-stroke penalty reconsidered
Remember my 5% penalty for four-stroke engines over 0.91 cu. in. displacement? I did not submit a rule change proposal as I said I might. Why not?
- The overwhelming number of letters from fliers who use four-stroke engines over 0.91 cu. in. displacement thought it would be too controversial.
- I decided I didn't have enough support for the proposal.
- I realized that if I had submitted it, it would probably have caused as much friction as it would have solved.
So I dropped the idea. Letters for both four-stroke and two-stroke engines were against the proposal. But the single thing that convinced me not to submit the proposal was seeing that fliers of airplanes with two-stroke engines can do high-power maneuvers like the Hourglass.
I was an FAI judge at the recent N-PAC meet in Lawrenceville, Illinois, and watched all the FAI finalists. Bill Rutledge finished seventh in FAI using a two-stroke engine. Where he finished is not really important. What is important is that he did not have a performance limitation. The YS .61 AR in his eight-pound TZA MK IV appeared to pull the airplane through maneuvers like the Hourglass without difficulty.
I hadn't seen that kind of performance before. If Bill Rutledge's airplane can perform those demanding maneuvers, others can do it too, and two-stroke fliers don't need to be protected from the big, bad four-stroke engines after all. I was wrong. Now if somebody would help me remove all those arrows from my back, I'd appreciate it.
Senior Pattern Association (SPA) information
The Senior Pattern Association (SPA) has generated a lot of interest around the country. I get letters all the time asking for information about how to join the SPA and where to get plans and/or kits for the airplanes that qualify.
If you want information on the SPA, please write to SPA president and newsletter editor Mickey Walker at:
- Mickey Walker, 3121 Northview Place, Smyrna, GA 30080
- Phone: (404) 435-8158
I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you send an SASE with your request. Mickey's newsletter includes SPA news and contest listings.
Plans for SPA airplanes are available from several sources:
- Model Airplane News magazine, 251 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897 — large plans directory that includes many old-time pattern airplanes.
- John Pond Old Time Plan Service, 4269 Syoko Cir., San Jose, CA 95136 — long list of plans from various magazines and individuals.
- Fran Taszkiewicz, 23 Marlee Drive, Tonawanda, NY 14150-4321 — DeBolt airplane plans.
- Tom Dixon, P.O. Box 671166, Marietta, GA 30066 — extensive list of plans from magazines and kits.
- Classic Air Models, P.O. Box 784, Fruitland Park, FL 34731; phone (904) 787-7475 — plans and kits for many airplanes.
The second annual SPA Championships will be held near Atlanta, Georgia, in a couple of weeks, and I plan to have a report on the results in the next column. Look for it.
About the '93 Nationals
I read in a recent Model Aviation that the 1993 Nationals will be at Lubbock, Texas. A week after I got the magazine I received my K-Factor (newsletter of the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics [NSRCA]). NSRCA president Bryan Henderson's column contained the following information about the Nationals site:
"I have been advised that Lubbock, Texas, is under serious consideration for next year's Nats. Lubbock is only 300 miles from me, so that would be great for my personal travel.
"Lubbock, however, demonstrates one of the problems with our Nats selection process. We would be at the international airport on the main crosswind runway. The runway would have the main active runway perpendicular to it at the left end. We would be assigned 5,000 feet of runway, 3,000 feet from the active jet runway. If we use the left end for a flying site, our turbulence will be as close as 1,000 feet to the active runway.
"The tower will be about 500 feet straight in front of the left-end site. In a short conversation with the Assistant Chief at Lubbock Tower, he mentioned that if we use that runway we may have to be completely clear in about five minutes if the wind changes. We will be flying east and west on the north side of an east-west runway in an area where the primary wind direction for a normal healthy breeze is from the south. If the wind does change to down our runway, we will have to leave."
I hope we're not going to go through another fiasco like the one we had at the 1992 Nationals at Westover AFB.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
