Bob,
You bring up two very good questions. I've noticed few top notch WS
students only want to go as far as other indoor models like Penny
Planes etc. nothing wrong with that. They are just as important to
Rubber Power Indoor world as a F1D. From speaking with them they
said it wasn't that a F1D scared them so much, just their interest
was elsewhere.
Jumping from WS model to F1D is hard No one living on earth will
say otherwise. It can be and has been done several times though. The
latest would be Justin Young who has never flown anything in
between. There have been several who only dabbled in other Indoor
models then took on F1D full time. The thing to remember is, in my
opinion that WS plane's basically has all rubber and building skills
needed for an F1D. Well, actually the prop is what holds them back
for a while. Still many of prop skills have already been learned.
What's more important is number years, contests, number of models
built and testing sessions that a WS student has under his belt
before moving on. That will not be there at all for BLG kids.
Let's take a student like Nick Ray for instance. He learned void of
a mentor close by. He had to travel to contests where he came in
contact with knowledgeable people like Bill. The point is Nick as
good as he is now took longer to make it to F1D's than others with
mentors close at hand. I would believe a BLG kid in Nick's shoes
would never get around to F1D out of share lack of time.
In most cases of a Junior F1D success they were found by a Indoor
flyer and asked to try their hand at it. They were found at a WS
contest. Their skill noticed then PERSONAL attention paid in helping
with the WS model long before actually asking them to build a F1D.
That sequence cannot happen with BLG. A WS flyer like Brett Sanborn
would never have been noticed as an example of many others.
Consider the mentioned rotation of events that WS only is to stay
for two years in high or middle school. The plan is bottle rockets
will be there for two year stretches with either BLG or WS totally
missing. Most of the kids have progressed took longer than two years
to find Indoor Rubber. Doug Schaefer would of missed it. Chalker
took from seventh grade to about his Junior year in High school to
be on the scene. I could name others. The only exceptions would be
sons of fathers who got into Indoor like the Rigotti's. Would a
circumstance like Ben Saks or Johnson's that had a friend into
flying went any further if WS had been suddenly stopped in their
life? Hard one to answer for me.
BLG did show me some skills needed for F1D even better than WS
demanded but with increased weight rule of BLG that won't be needed.
From mentoring our school last year to second in State there isn't
enough needed skills coming out of BLG to jump into F1D. Moving to
something else in Indoor would be wise IMHO. The bigger problem as
mentioned above is they won't stay at even BLG long enough to get
interested in a scale model.
One RUMOR I would like to address is notion that without BLG coming
in, any sort of flying event would have been lost for several years
in S.O.. That simply is not true. Those of you who fought hard and
saved WS five years a go know better. BLG didn't have to come in
now. That was all a scare tactic by same people who ran off great
number of good hearted mentors all across the nation.
Getting Off My Soap Box
Mark Schaefer
Received on Thu Oct 05 2006 - 12:32:27 CEST
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