Hi Matt,
I wonder what is your intention when asking for all this
things you do. You criticise Ukranien manufacturer for not
telling you each little detail from their newest competition
airplane and not show everything what makes the difference.
I think you forgot thats also a business for some of them.
think you start late with control line stunt as I did,
so I will tell you my secrets:
Build or buy a very competitive airplane which is lightweighted
straight, stiff and has a very consistent running engine no matter
electric or methanol. The engine run must be always consistent
and reproducible.
Find a flying buddy and practice with him as often you can under all
weather conditions. Criticize yourself to develop your skill, thats it.
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Last thing, I will never accept a judging by computer, you only can loose, why?
1. I will not have the time or the area to practice like other, younger people have,
my only chance is my individual style and personality in combination
with correct flying skills as much as possible.
....................................................
This is no stopwatch class, I come from rc pylon racing and I know what I am
talking about. People tell me when I start stunt competition that I
will come home allways at the last from the board, because I have no name
and a lot of other funny things and I will as a noname never get the points
I deserve,
Well, the opposite thing happened, I often felt to get to much points,
and always accept my result in one way and the other.
If you cant life with it, go racing. Thats the reason I go racing when I was younger.
So no need to despair, concentrate on yourself, practice a lot and have fun while you fly.
Dietmar
Thanks for an great post Dietmar.(pardon me for making some corrections to spelling, etc. Some people have a hard time translating. You did an excellent job despite not being raised with the awful English language.
HAVE FUN should be everyone's motto in control line flying. It is challenging, particularly trying to do well at more than one event.
You are lucky to have more uniform judges in Europe. From videos, but not first hand, consistency is more important. We often have the problem in the US finding enough judges, and getting the judges enough training to do a consistent job. Some are just better than others.
So you live with it, thank them, and have fun flying another flight.
In some ways computerized judging would be better- the score would be the lowest difference from a perfect pattern. Almost everybody would get low scores until the software was adjusted to either give higher scores or be less picky.
On the other hand, we can just ignore what the computer does, just as most flyers don't complain about the judging because there isn't much to be done about it. Computer judging would be more consistent in the long run.
A lucky judging story- Quite a few years ago my flying buddy, Gil Reedy, and I had the pleasure of judging Bob Hunt and Windy Urtnowski at a local contest. We both could fly pretty good patterns and knew what to look for.
After their first flights, better than anyone else flying, they were 1 point apart. On the second flight they scored 1/2pt the other way. Overall, Bob Hunt won by 1/2 pt. Really, they were both identical. No judges can justify a 1/2 pt, difference, but that is way the scoring is supposed to be by the rules.
It was actually quite rewarding seeing two very good flyers fly four very good patterns. Neither Gil nor I knew how close the scores were until the CD posted them.
Phil C