I suppose I should weigh in with my opinions for what little they are worth. I have not been in the competition scene too long - only about 8 years, but my recollection is that dorking was way more prevalent before the easy availability of commercial skegs than it is now. Competition planes are designed and set up to maximize the points of the task, With AMA tapes having one point every 4 inches, stopping accurately is the name of the game. I would predict that without skegs, dorking would get worse again, not better, because the only way to score high points without a "perfect" approach would be to dork hard. So the planes would change and the nose would be fully carbon fiber. Alternatively, the FAI events do not allow skegs, and the big guys rarely need to dork to hit a 2 meter diameter 100 spot. You still see plenty of dorks from guys that wind up hot on final, sometimes this is NOT their fault. You cannot always land into the wind - GUARANTEED! Wind shifts happen. Do you think they will just say "crap" and land out? Not likely. Most of our club members have no trouble, sans skeg, hitting 95 or above regularly on the FAI tape. That doesn't make it much of a discriminator.
Take the skegs off with the current tasks and you simply introduce a luck factor. The practiced guys will still win, those lesser skilled pilots will be rolling the dice. All the idea's that include "landing judges" are lunacy - I want criteria that are measurable - no arguments ( I am a CD). One post indicated that the AMA Nats bans skegs - I don't believe that is true (at least when I was there) except perhaps RES or Nostalgia. As to voting, I can deal with it - just make it so that folks that actually attend contests do the voting - not those who don't - but want it to be different. But it is really not that important - most modern commercially available skegs are easily removeable. That's what I do when I go to FAI events. I don't care what the landing task is - I just do it. If you have a strong opinion about how a contest should be run - get your butt up and run one with your rules and see how it works. There is no perfect task - everyone won't be happy. The poly guys generally don't like runway, due to poorer handling in crosswinds, some guys don't like AMA tapes, some guys think the FAI tape is too easy. Have fun picking the right one. The best answer is - The CD picks the tasks and landings - go to the contest, follow the rules, fly and land however you like - AND HAVE FUN! If you are not having fun - you are doing something terribly wrong. Jim Jim Monaco Rocky Mountain Soaring Association Denver, CO -----Original Message----- From: Simon Van Leeuwen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 9:58 PM To: Peter S Carr Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RCSE] One more comment on skegs. Fustrate and embarrass those who "need" the skeg, by landing better and beating those who use one. Skegs need to go away. Peter S Carr wrote: > > Good evening all. As someone else observed, we have been through all this > before. That said, the thing that bugs me is that some contests accept > skegs while others, like the AMA Nats seemed to have banned them. So what > is a balsa builder to do?? Do I start making two sets of ships, one with > skegs and one without? Will there be an end to this debate.. > The answer to both questions is........who knows! > > If the LSF wants to show leadership in the soaring sport let them come > out on one one side of this issue or the other. If they don't want to > step up and take a position then go to Plan B. They could run an e-mail > poll of the membership. A majority opinion by voters would be a clear > decision. Let all contests in the USA honor the majority voice. Then, at > last, we can get down to the fun part which is soaring. > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
