Is IAC Sportsman for the sportsman?

[Diana]

Thank you for the reply Diana. I have competed in the past but many years ago in a Pitts S-1 and a Decathlon in Sportsman and Intermediate. I was curious now days with so many high performance aircraft in Sportsman if it really is Sportsman or just a shorter simpler routine for the high performance ships. Back in the day I would have discussions about this type of thing with Giles Henderson. He was flying his clipped wing Cub and did quite well with it. Perhaps that can still happen.

Good morning, John. I have several thoughts about that and will post them in segments so the posts won't be so long.

Giles is my hero! I am in awe of him. Actually, he was assigned to be my mentor at the Kansas City contest and he was quite helpful. Here is a link to my article where I mentioned him.

Since you already have experience competing I will only touch on what might be different in the Citabria, in my limited experience. Having the fixed pitch prop added to the challenge of energy/power management, for me. I don't know what the Pitts S-1 has...the different models of Pitts can be even more confusing than the different versions of Citabrias.

Making the Citabria look good for the judges in the competition maneuvers, especially the roll, can be VERY hard. But, there are those who can fly the Citabria well enough to pull it off. If you look at the contest results over the years in the southeast region, you will see that a Citabria pilot (Mark Fullerton) did well in the Sportsman category. It looks like he flies a 7KCAB. Last year Greg Koontz also competed in a J-3 in Sportsman. So, it can be done, but if scoring well is a goal for you, then it's going to be harder to do that in a Citabria.

I came in 9th out of 9 in Primary, so obviously, I didn't score all that well, but at least I was in the top 10. Several people gave me some great advice before and during the contest, and that helped me a lot. I would be glad to share some of that with you if you are interested.

The contest environment was overwhelming to me and, to be honest with you, I felt out of place showing up in a Citabria. It's too bad there aren't more contests now where the Citabria isn't out of place. I guess it depends on what you really want out of the competition. I met some GREAT people and became a better pilot by preparing for the contest and practicing for it. But, I will never do it again for various reasons.

More responses to your other questions shortly.