.......I have had plenty of people watch Skyray "fly-arounds" where various people cranked out 500+ point flight after 500+ point flight with dead nuts repeatability on both the 20FP and the 25LA, and still have them say stuff like "yeah, that was pretty good, but how can I make it run like a stunt motor?" And then an overwhelming feeling of despair follows.....
Brett
Have to agree wholeheartedly. While there usually is something that can be changed in a plane/engine setup that will improve it, the question becomes when is "improving" the plane worth less than improving the pilot. Generally, in all events, very good pilots(or teams) get better by flying and practicing than messing with a reliable engine setup. Very few people who haven't years of experience or very good goto flyers can easily correctly diagnose why something is no longer "right" when a plane/engine starts giving them trouble. But you gotta keep trying,.
That's a little different that what I meant. I was actually referring to the tendency to not even try the engine as it comes, and establish no baseline whatsoever, reliable or otherwise, and immediately launch into grinding it, adding head gaskets, trying to run it at 8000 rpm, etc. Even if you manage to get it to run reliably, you have given up a huge amount of performance right off the bat, and you never even knew what you missed. There's an entire industry formed to do it for you, too.
But, I think once you have a reliable system, THEN, trying adjustments to look for more performance makes sense. As long as you can go back to a baseline. One of the big mistakes competitive fliers make is assuming that a familiar setup is preferable to an improvement. Better is better, period. Back in the good old days, you were afraid to make changes because you never knew what they would do for sure, and, it was not always possible to get back to the original performance if it turned out not to work. That's no longer the case, changes are almost always pretty predictable and you can always put it back the way it was.
To compete in stunt today, you have to continuously evaluate your system and if there is a shortcoming, you have to be willing to change it, right then, no matter what the situation. The days of getting it just close enough to get through patterns and then attempting to burn 40 gallons of fuel in June is not a winning procedure. Of course, the change might hurt, but if you don't you will get eaten alive. You need to have enough practice and experience making changes to know you aren't going to screw it up, but trying to overcome a flaw by more practice is just not going to work.
Brett
Topic: OS 46LA-S (Read 15987 times)