We had 12 pilots in open show up for the contest and 2 RES. We flew 4 rounds of 3 heats with 4 pilots per heat. After the round the 2 RES guys flew man on man so they also got 4 rounds in. We had 5 winches on the field (Thanks guys!)
I used a free F3J scoring program that could automatically set the matrix and score the contest (we did input the scores manually). I did make a few tweaks to suite our format. In F3J there is a penalty for flying over the 10 minutes so if someone posted a 10:03 for example we input a 9:57 in the program and it wouldn't add a penalty automatically. I am sure someone could write a special program for this but that's beyond my capabilities. Everything worked well for our needs. Basically we launched the 4 pilots, the next pilot launched when the first was 1/2 way up the tow. No retrievers. This gave us enough separation that there was no traffic on final approach if everyone made his time. With only 12 pilots the 2nd group timed for the first and the 3rd shagged the winch lines. After a bit the pilots got the hang of the format and some had their models ready to launch well ahead of time. With a bit more help and a few more contests everyone will be up to speed and the contest will move quickly. 2 heats could easily be flown 5 minutes apart. So at a large contest you could launch 10 pilots every 5 minutes if you wanted. No line breaks and I think only 1 pop off for the day. Sorry Mark. I used the std FAI tape (the long one) because we had them already. I will make the special tape for the next contest. The next F3XTD contest is the first Sunday next month at HSS field in Costa Mesa, CA. Come on out. We will set the field for 7 winches next time. (The club is re conditioning a few extra winches for next month.) Tom Copp COMPOSITE SPECIALTIES www.F3X.com ph/fax 949-645 7032 RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
