SEN 1267 25 Nov 2008

  • Print
Details
Category: Archive 2008
Hits: 1761
Table of Contents SEN 1267


  1. Americas Cup X recommendation
  2. Where in the world?
  3. Euro Champs are the issue?




America's Cup "X" recommendations
From: Reid Simpson


Roger, Please post on SEN
 
I have read and re-read the proposed "X"treme recommendations to the America's Cup program put forth by Jim Parker to the SCAT club and published here on SEN. And I have asked myself just what is the purpose of this radical change.
 
I would think that when making a change to a very successful program it should be one that would help every flyer and every contest that has supported the America's cup competitions over it's lifetime and one that would increase the participation, not decrease it.
 
If it's an attempt to create a class of competition that is for only the ELITE, I would think that in our nations current economic times you would only be fooling yourselves into believing that it is business as usual for the pocket books of all the America's Cup competitors.
 
In your letter you stated:

Will this kill some of the smaller contests?  Likely yes for the
"transported" contest described above, I estimate 2 to 3 but realize we
have already seen this happen even with AmCup sanction (Harts Lake and this
year Tom Kerr's contest). But for the others it is hard to say. With the 30
contests, those without AmCup sanctions have been hurt. I hear it all the
time, CD / Clubs wanting the sanction.  With only eight AmXcup contests,
there would be more small contests that would now be on even ground.  Also
the F1EGHJPQ AmCup program would be in place for the current 30 contests 
 
So, what will be the impact on the smaller contests that have supported the America's Cup competitions since day one? You say that they would still have the F1-QPGHJ classes. Hello, do you realize who is flying these events at the smaller contests. The F1A flyers bring their F1H models, The F1B flyers bring their F1G models and the F1C flyers bring their F1J models.
 
At this years Autumn Cup we had the largest number of entries in F1J of any contest in America this year including the NATS. We had 9 flyers and would have had 11 if Faust and I had been able to compete. And why so many, It's because at the Spring Cup and the Autumn Cup we have an event called "Open Gas". We have run this event for 23 years now. It allows the AMA gas flyers to compete by rounds using the F1C flight rules, but any size motor/model with no restrictions on weight and Fuel. And they mainly fly the large 3.5 to 7.5 motors/models. I included these comments about the Open Gas flyers because they also come to fly F1J as their second event.
 
In a recent contest report on SEN, the question was asked "where are the F1J and F1P flyers? I read with interest the comments made by Mark Belfielld on SEN who asked who drove the market, the companies or the customers. Once again, please read his closing comment.
 
"In the manufacturing world where I come from, both of these methods are
used, however, in almost every case that I have seen, the successful and
long lived companies are driven by their Customers...........Best Regards, Mark F Belfield"
 
To go back to the question on F1J, "Where are They?" when a West coast club proposed that the current FAI rules on the F1J motor run of 7 seconds would not be allowed at their contest, and then ignored the clamor that arose from the "customers" and ran the contest by "their" rule; a nation wide survey was sent out to the FAI community addressing the shortened motor run. The result of survey was that the customers were not in favor of shortening the motor run. The survey was ignored, and the customers realizing they had been ignored left their F1J models on the shelve of their workshops. 2007 Nats F1J with 7 sec motor run had 15 entries. 2008 Nats F1J with the 5 second motor run had 6 entries.
 
The America's Cup competition and the qualifying time of 75 minutes to participate in the team finals has given all of us good contests, good points competition and good participation. The format has allowed all of us to travel and compete in the contests where we have the time and means to attend. The originators of the America's Cup and the team selection committee have maintained good programs that have kept the flyers active and interested and we have held our own at the World Champs and in a reality check we have some of the best and fairest competitions and team selection programs in the world. Can and could there be improvements to these programs? Of course, but we must always look at the results being beneficial to the whole of the USA modeling community.
 
Reid Simpson  
 
 
 
Where in the world?

Judge SCAT,

I'm always disappointed that there are no America's Cup contests in Europe. How about it ?

EoB

EoB

You bring up an excellent point, here in the US we have failed with our choice of President elect and JFK, these two gentlemen had strong contacts with nations that unfortunately don't have an aeromodelling heritage.  In spite of the $ spent on the election and the fact that a FAI sportsman did the polling for one of the major candidates this did not come up during the campaign.

I can suggest however, its highly likely that one will be held in Utopia aka Bulgaria


The Judge




Euro Champs are the issue?


I've been reading over the past weeks the thoughts and ideas re the selection of the US teams. Selecting teams is very emotive and we in the UK spend more time and energy with ideas about how to select the team than at times we do getting the selected team ready for the champs. However that is not the reason for this e-mail.

It is the clip below. There is no author assigned so I don't know who this is addressed to but I object strongly to the insinuations in that clip. The facts are very very simple. The European Champs are for European Nations. If you are a country outside Europe then you can't compete. This is not European dog in a manger it is a fact of Geography. Now don't go slagging us off for that fact. There is the World Cup you can always fly in that or organise a Pan Pacific event.

OK?

Michael Woodhouse
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
http://www.freeflightsupplies.co.uk

There is much ill-feeling outside of the Europe about non-Europeans not
being able to participate in the Euro champs. That’s the way the rules are
and the Europeans are naturally selfishly un-sympathetic.

Mike

You missed the point of the article but you just illustrated the point  about the unsympathetic attitude. The FAI is set up the way it is and there is no dispute about this.  I did not suggest that non-Eurpean flyers should be permitted to participate in the  Euro Champs.  But the geographic structure makes it much cheaper to run and attend a European Championship than any other Continential Championship , such as American or Pacific Championship. The geography of North America, the Pacific or Asia is such with great distances and few countries. The European Championship gives a major event every year for European flyers. There is no such event for non-European sportsman and no way of organizing it under the current structure. An event for all the non-European countries would only probably have a max of 10 counties so would be of smaller scale and the travel cost would be much higher.  This event would not be of such a scale as the Euro champs and hence not so motivational. We are looking at ways of maintaining interest for the top sportsmen.

The is why I proposed 3 ideas.


One was doing just what you commented about in your unsympathetic fashion, namely organizing a non-European Champs and this idea was aimed at all non-Europeans.

The second about a two level Americas Cup was of more interest to US and Canadian sportsmen

The last was of interest to all and proposed a different way of looking at major events that applies to all sportsmen

Editor




..............................
Roger Morrell