KenChoo

Hi Chip,

Welcome aboard, and I'm sure we all value the opportunity to get your input in this forum.

I'm curious about how you feel about the progression through today's pattern schedules/ranks. Is there too much of a gap growing between the AMA pattern and FAI schedules such that the move from Masters to FAI is too great? I know Masters is supposed to be a destination class of its own, but for someone like me (flying Intermediate), my goal is to gradually develop my skills through each class with the hope of eventually flying FAI competitively. What about the unknown elements that AMA doesn't prepare you for? Just wanted some feedback or thoughts in general of the state or health of the way things are done right now. I am really glad for the new schedules every 3 years though.

Thanks,
Ken

Passport1

My Feedback: (8)

Ken,

I think the difficulty now between the two classes is actually less now then it was a couple of years ago, but I realize its still a big jump into FAI. FAI is like three levels of prgression in itself. The first level or pattern your going to concentrate on is the prelim. pattern, and then once you get close to, or even make the finals, that is when you have to start flying the other two as well. Its really not that bad, it just looks that way. Almost everyone I have talked to has said once they had the prelims down it barely took any time at all to learn the finals pattern. It also seems to me the prelim pattern is always the most difficult of the two for one reason or another, and I am not sure why that has been that way or if it was even done intentioanlly.

As for the unknowns, they really aren't that bad unless you have someone that tries to play, "stump the chump" and blatantley, when its his turn to pick, puts a normally flown upwind manuever, downwind or vice versa. We have experienced that with one individual at the past two Worlds and after speaking with Mr. Bob Skinner it sounds like action will be taken to help avoid this. This year we were flying in 30mph winds and he picked an outside avalanche from the top entering it upwind. It was pretty interesting for a few guys when they got to the point where the snap was supposed to be. They were movin and ended up doing almost a full snap and a half, and then, after getting that train wreck gathered up, had do try to accelerate and make it up the backside with all that wind trying to push the plane out of the box. It was a mess to say the least. Myself and most of the others feel that stuff is unsportsman like to say the least, but unfortunately we have some people that disagree and just want to make things as difficult as possible.

I also believe we are going to run a simplified unknown at the nats this year in masters, but that has not been decided for sure. If we do it, we will make up the type of pattern that most will be able to fly fairily easily, putting the emphasis on who flies it the best, not who can just stumble through it without getting a zero.

Hope this helps

Chip