As someone who is a perpetual USIC attendee and who recently graduated from
senior status I would like to say that the timing has little barring on USIC
participation. The only year that I ever missed a USIC since I started
flying was because that years USIC was a week later than it had been the
previous year, so my parents made vacation plans. As soon as most kids get
out of school, they and their parents normally want to do something
non-academic. Thus, the beach or Disney wins over model airplanes. The
people for whom USIC is important pull their kids out of school and take
their vacation days to be there. If we start trying to accommodate everyone,
are we also going to move the site every year to move close to the person
who whines the loudest about having to travel the previous year? Goodness
knows getting to Kibbie from the east coast is trek, but a faithful few
people do it. The main focus should be on getting people into indoor to the
extent that they are willing to burn vacation days and travel eat the travel
cost. In my opinion this can be accomplished through regular local flying.
The Magnificent Mountain Men have accomplished this. In my several years of
flying with the Thermal Thumbers of metro Atlanta the only time I have ever
seen indoor enthusiasm wane is when we have not been able to fly on regular
basis. Furthermore, Mr. Lew Young's after school program in the San
Fransisco Bay area has turned out noted Jr's. Tim Chang and Anjaney
Kattapalli. Several years Anjaney flew out fly F1D at USIC only to fly home
and take his finals the following Monday. Lastly, I not everyone is on a 1st
of June to 1st of September schedule anymore. a large number have got to
year around schools, and an even larger number are an a mid May to first of
August schedule in urban areas. Thus there is no one catch all date. Hopefully
that settles that,
Nick,
P.S. When I was about 12 years old I got the bright idea to test fly my SO
model during the F1D session at USIC, As I drifted out more towards the
center John Kagan politely asked if he could steer my model back in towards
the basketball courts. After doing so he smile and told me to try to keep
the model to the edge of the dome. In my experience spectators are every bit
as trouble some as juniors and seniors and we wouldn't have many flyers if
we closed our contest to the public. So most people tend to handle stupidity
like Kagan did in the above example.
On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 12:37 AM, Don DeLoach <ddeloach_at_comcast.net> wrote:
>
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> Bill this is a pathetic commentary on the state of Indoor FF. Is it any
> wonder participation keeps dwindling if the only goal is to appease the old
> farts?
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> I am active in both indoor and outdoor FF. My observation is that outdoor
> is doing much better than indoor because of a general difference in
> attitude. Outdoor FF clubs/contests are generally more INCLUSIVE. I.e.,
> “Here, kid, chuck this glider!” Contrast this to most indoor groups where
> EXCLUSITY reigns. “Slow down!” and “Don’t touch!”
>
>
>
> --Don
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> I totally agree. I think the standard answer is that's the week the dome
> is available. It's also sad but true that some older flyers are not very
> anxious to have juniors around.
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Received on Sun May 10 2009 - 00:19:03 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:45 CET