At 07:23 AM 12/9/2001 -0800, you wrote: >I've been an active competitor and regular volunteer at the Nats for a >number of years. The single biggest change that the location of the >Nats at Muncie allowed us to do on a regular basis was the multiple man >on man format with a reasonable landing direction. There have been >times when it wasn't optimal, but this generally occurred mid-round and >was left unchanged until a round completion. > >Do we really want to give this up and go back to the "great" local sites >such as were allocated to soaring in 1986 (Lincoln), 1988 (Lake >Charles), and 1989 (Richland)? These sites were all terrible, and >partly why the LSF Nats finally broke away from AMA to establish a more >stable, contestant-friendly operation. <snip>
I see you didn't fly Texas in 81 or Springfield in 83. I have flown in over half the AMA Nats since 1980 and the only acceptable site for the Nats, other than Muncie, was Vincennes in 1991 and 1993. I had rather pay a couple hundred dollars air fair than to fly in another contest at a grossly inadequate site like Texas. Before moving the nats, you need to get both an adequate site and a club or clubs willing to put up the manpower to host 8 days of competition with up to a hundred or more contestants. I don't think most of those wanting to move the Nats around have any idea of how many people it takes to run such an event nor how big a site is needed. I can run a one day contest for 50 entrys and fly 5 rounds per day with 5 people with the equipment my club has. That's a score keeper, impound keeper, a man to fix broken towlines, fix turnarounds, etc, and two winchmasters. We have 4 winch trailers complete with retrievers and run two at a time with two as backups. I suspect it would take 10 times as many people to run the same contest for 8 days as is done at the Nats. It would be interesting to know exactly how many people it has taken to run the last few Nats or Visalia. Visalia handles about three times the contestants but they only have to have manpower for two days plus setup and cleanup. How about it Larry? How would you like to run Visalia for 8 days? Chuck Anderson RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
