unfair

[flyrite]

Let me start out by stating who I am.....Tony Zorn.... IAC # 24372 since 1996 ...2013 Northeast Advanced Champion...Not that my time nor acheivements gives me credibility at all!!!
But after years of competition it does give me some perspective. I understand that some will disagree with me. My issue is with some competitiors that after 3 or 4 years of flying advanced continue to compete in "Unlimted Machines" in the advanced category!
My opinion is move up{category} or move back in performance{airframe}!
How can you consider it fair fight on a hot day with the guys flying the "4 cyl small winged" mounts in the unknowns..

Tony

[RetroAcro]

Yeah Tony, when are you moving back to Intermediate so we neophyte bi-wing guys have a chance in Advanced? Missed you at Warrenton buddy!

Eric

[flyrite]

Yeah Tony, when are you moving back to Intermediate so we neophyte bi-wing guys have a chance in Advanced? Missed you at Warrenton buddy!

Eric

Eric ..A Neophyte..WOW I didn't know were going to bring sexual orientation into competition flying .
Hated to miss Warrenton , But alas WX did not participate. I plan to make Morganton though!

On the Advanced Lifers flying the unlimited machines year after year in the catogory....Thought I would stir the pot alittle.

Take care
Tony

[WLIU]

OK, I'll bite. What is an "Unlimited machine"? I beat guys who are flying Intermediate in their Sukhoi's and $400K Extras, and I "merely" fly an Pitts S-2A. Its the pilot not the ride. Suck it up and get more coaching.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[flyrite]

Wes, If I got to s'plain it to a guy like you, Then really there's no use in making the argument for the umpteenth time!!

When you can explain why their use to be rules dictating by the IAC what was AWAC legal up to at least the early 2000's ..Then you can tell me to suck it up & get more coaching!

I am very pleased with my results when I compete... I beat'm also...My issue is not my results , But anyone who would argue that a guy flying a "Small Winged 4 cyl" against a "Big winged 6 cly" guy is a fair fight in my opinon has disqualified themselves from the argument! Also to address YOUR competeing against the "Unlimited Machines" in intermediate.... You cant use the performance in the lower categories like you can in the advanced & unlimited...Otherwise the 4 cy guys would be competing in unlimited!.........Move up to advanced & the more complex seqences & see how you feel about the differences in performance !!

BTW..The way you described the planes you compete against shows you know what an "Unlimited Machine" is....Just not willing to acknowledge the performance gap!

Take Care
Tony

[WLIU]

The competition categories present increasing difficulty not just in technical execution, but also in terms of $$, time, and equipment. You have to bring enough of all of these dimensions to the arena.

I do not expect to fly a Decathlon once a month and be successful in Intermediate if we define success as consistently bringing a trophy home. The flip side is that I don't expect to bring a Sukhoi or the latest $400,000 supership to a contest and be awarded a trophy just for showing up.

I do not fly my Pitts S-2A in Advanced because I am not able to budget for the increased time and $$ required for practice and coaching and the increased maintenance required due to accelerated wear and tear on the airplane. To successfully fly Advanced I will need to budget for a higher performance airplane and more time and $$ for coaching.

Now the reality is that when Dan Rihn went to the drawing board 20 years ago he configured the One Design airplane for the performance that the Advanced and maybe Unlimited categories required at that time. But the world changed in the last 20 years as other designs hit the streets and pilot skills improved. The upper categories have gotten harder, requiring more of both the machine and the pilot. There is now a bigger wing for the One Design in an attempt to keep up.

Unfortunately, some of us have smaller budgets for competition. That's life. I compete against a friend who flies a brand new Extra 330 in Intermediate. I can and do outscore him in my "lowly" S-2A if I can connect my eyes and brain to my hands and feet working the controls on contest day despite his apparent performance advantage. That is the challenge. The reward is a trophy that cost about $30 and bragging rights for a week or two. That's all.

So I guess that we all occasionally get frustrated that we can not make our rides do the same things that pilots who have more expensive or higher performance rides do, but we can still score more points. We fly the same flight programs. Performance can hurt as much as it can help. You can make mistakes faster. And the Unknown Program tends to reward the pilots who can think at speed.

Now as I noted in the second paragraph there are limits to what you can get out of your ride, and that gets back to bringing enough airplane to the contest. Frankly, to move to Advanced I would be swapping my Pitts for a Staudacher, a Lazer, or maybe a Super Stinker. Those monoplanes have more wing and balance better and the SS design recognizes the changes in the competition world since Curtis Pitts first started drawing up plans for his biplanes.

An airplane is not a lifetime commitment and if you are competing with one you have to regularly take a hard look at your equipment and how it helps you deploy your pilot skills. Sounds like its time for a change.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[ssmdive]

Please read where this thread went - It went down hill.

http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?4448-Fair-unknowns

But I agree… It seems that as an organization the IAC has little interest in competition for anyone that does not have a supership.

For example, I just came back from the Skydiving Nationals. I just won the Advanced class (I also won it in 2003, this year I did it as a player coach). I am not eligible to compete in Advanced again till 2019 unless I am the only member of a 4way team. This prevents people camping out in that class year after year.

I am one guy that is not sure he will compete again even though I have a ship that is very capable of Sportsman and I am flying the known to get better as much as possible.

Dan Rhin's idea of a one design contest is something I would love. Don't want to buy or build a third plane for acro and the class does not exist.
Wes's idea of a Pitts contest is something I would love. Really, I like it but the class does not exist.
Wes's idea of a group buying a plane… Again a great idea, but I have to buy yet another plane.

The trend with all these great ideas is it requires the individuals to do something, and not the IAC to do something.

What is the IAC doing to encourage aerobatics? I have seen very little effort in attracting new pilots.

[flyrite]

Welcome to the "Eternal Debate" ssmdive...You know you would think because it keeps coming up that it might behoove the Powers that be to at least jump in to discuss...dismiss...lend credence to...Tell why this or that won't work & just generally make guys like us at least feel like our voice is being heard.

And to that point I shot an e-mail to Mike Heuer yesterday & asked him when he got through with this weeks nationals would he peruse this thread & maybe give his 2 cents worth. He responded & I quote....I will give a look.

So maybe he will jump in sometime next week, We'll see.

But to that point of the membership being able to have forum to discuss issue's like this ... I guess most use the "Acro Exploder" which is great if you figure how to post on it...But...I've always assumed that this is the official EAA web-site...Which means it's the official IAC web-site & through the years I've never seen one president or board member{unless I've missed it} get actively involved with any of these threads...Huh, go figure!!! I do appreciate Guys like Wes & others that participated in the "Fair Unknowns" & this thread for making the arguments for changeing nothing, But..They like me & you are just lowly members. Although they are the guys doing a lot of the work to put on the contests & I would assume they are afraid that messing with the status quo might affect turnout. And rightfully so

Tony

[ssmdive]

But to that point of the membership being able to have forum to discuss issue's like this ... I guess most use the "Acro Exploder" which is great...But...I've always assumed that this is the official EAA web-site...Which means it's the official IAC web-site & through the years I've never seen one president or board member{unless I've missed it} get actively involved with any of these threads...Huh, go figure!!!

I do appreciate Guys like Wes & others that participated in the "Unfair Unknowns" & this thread for making the arguments for changeing nothing, But..They like me & you are just lowly members

The lack of action at all by the IAC is why I have let my membership expire. People like Wes mean well, and like I said many of the *individuals* I have met have been great. But the IAC as an organization seems uninterested to even listen. I saw/see zero benefit in being a member, I only joined last time because I wanted to be a competitor.

[RetroAcro]

Wes's idea of a Pitts contest is something I would love.

I think Wes was talking about a scoring system within a contest that recognized the top scoring Pitts pilot across categories, much like the Grassroots award we currently have. One of the various problems with "One Design" categories involving head-to-head competition between similar types is what difficulty level do you make it? A Pitts can compete in Primary through Advanced competitively. Make it Intermediate level of difficulty, and it will be too challenging for many and too simple for others. What you really need is an entire "One Design" contest with multiple categories and levels of difficulty. You'd be doing good to get 10 similar types to show up at a regional contest. And then once you divide these ten pilots between categories (Sportsman, Intermediate, Advanced for example), you're going to be left with categories of three pilots. Not very competitive.

IMO, all this talk of unfairness revolves around two scenarios - 4 cylinders (Pitts and One Designs) in the Advanced category, and very low performing airplanes in Sportsman. Primary is a rank beginner category, and is essentially a way for a competitor to get their foot in the door and get some contest experience. The piloting abilities at this level are so inconsistent that it really doesn't matter what aircraft type is flown. Maybe something could be done in Sportsman. You, 'ssmdive' brought up that 'other thread', but one of my remaining problems with much of what you state is that I'm just flat not convinced that there are significant numbers of Citabria type pilots who would all of a sudden come out of the woodwork and compete in a "fair" Sportsman category just because of rule changes. There's just no evidence that trying to pull them in would produce anything more than a handful across the country. Are significant numbers of Sportsman pilots unhappy about Extra 300's being allowed? I don't know, but I somewhat doubt it. Look at who has won Nationals the last couple years. If anything, some may rather see a limitation on pilot experience in Sportsman than a limitation on the type of aircraft flown. Is that a good idea? How do you implement that? Would it just cause pilots who have been around a long time supporting the sport to just say screw it? Lots of hard questions and no easy answers.

So to continue - In Intermediate, you must fly an airplane that folks are generally willing to snap. These days, this generally excludes Citabria and Decathlons and leaves the airplanes that are perfectly able to meet the performance requirements of the Intermediate category.

Again, we see the issue resurface in Advanced where stock 180 hp Pitts (and One Designs) may struggle at times just to get through certain figures in a sequence, where that MX breezes through it. In Unlimited, it's pretty much all 6-cylinder monoplanes anyway, so the issue is moot here.

So what's the magic recipe for making IAC more attractive to current and prospective members? I would sure like to know. So would the board members. I can guarantee that statements such as "IAC only cares about the super ships" is untrue. As I've said before, I'd love to see some "One Design" contests for Decathlon and RV types. I'd put in effort to make it happen - if people would actually show up. I've organized and run six contests. I know what it takes, and I'd volunteer to run something like this. Competition in any form (even catered to them) is a non starter for over 99% of RV pilots. Try rounding up a bunch of Citabria pilots. I would be interested in seeing Pitts categories, but again there's the reality of participation, structuring, and that of "one design" participation diluting participation under the current structure. IAC needs more pilots, but we sure can't afford to lose the few we have now.

I imagine there are definite ways to improve the sport, but I also imagine that our biggest obstacle by far is the economy, diminishing pilot population, increased cost, fewer and fewer acro/tailwheel operators, fewer airport kids, and fewer kids who see flying as "cool" and something they'd like to do.

I'm not some establishment type. I'm all for improvement. Most of these types of discussions are short on actual concrete, thought-out solutions. Good solutions require quite a bit of experience, knowledge, and wisdom about this sport. I wish I had all that. For now, I'll take satisfaction in showing how little stock Pitts' can stack up against the monoplanes in Advanced. :-)

Eric