I think we all need to look at this F1D rule change affair with a bit more calm and reason. First, let me say that I would not have voted, if I had an official vote, to change the F1D rules. However, some were of the opinion, as expressed in the major argument of the proposal as set forth in the CIAM Plenary agenda, that the performance of the current F1D's was too great from a smaller site size standpoint and that the flight times were too long both from a contest duration standpoint. There were secondary arguments for increasing the plane weight to allow the use of more readily available, but heavier, materials and to make it easier for less experienced builder to build a plane to the minimum weight. Given these goals, it can be argued that the rule changes were not unreasonable and that the rule changes allowed current planes to be flown with just the use of a motor spacer.
On the other hand, many F1D fliers are of the opinion that the above goals were unnecessary. With respect to site size, not only are there major sites other than Belgrade and Slanic but the current F1D can also be easily setup and trimmed to fly in all site sizes and heights. The flight time and possibly excessive contest duration is a bit less two sided. The current two round per day World Championship organization is about the limit with the current planes. With but one team flier allowed to process and fly at a time, the third team member's flight is often launched just before the end of a round. And then there often a need for reflights between rounds. Having three rounds per day as a means to shorten major contest duration is possible with the current planes but makes for a very long day. But, there may be other viable ways to shorten contest duration other than reducing the performance of the planes. Changing how the major contests are organized and conducted would have been an avenue to explore.
The major complaint about the rule changes is that there was not a community wide discussion of the need to change the rules and then, if changes were found to be necessary, how the rules should be changed to meet those needs. The rule change proposal was required to be submitted to the FAI/CIAM on or before November 15th of last year. A significant portion of the F1D community were not made aware of the proposal until the first week in February of this year when the National Aeromodelling Commissions and the Free Flight Technical Committee members were given the CIAM Plenary Agenda for the April meeting. This agenda was not publicly available from the FAI website until February 14th, Yes, it would have been nice for the proposal to be discussed before its submittal to the CIAM and before the April Plenary agenda was available. Still, there were two months to discuss and make recommendations to the CIAM Plenary (although many of the top fliers were busy preparing for and flying in the 2014 World Championships).
I think the lesson to be learned from these past months is that the F1D community needs to be open to calm and reasonable discussions. We need to be respectful of opinions with which we disagree so that no one feels unwelcome and all feel that even non-mainstream ideas can be put forth. If there is to be another round of rule change proposals for 2016, we need to start discussing them now. It is doubtful that a consensus can be reached on any further rule changes but I suspect that we can reach a point where a majority of F1D fliers can agree on any (or no) rule changes and where all feel that there was ample opportunity for thorough discussions.
Leo Pilachowski (LeoP), Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Received on Wed Apr 23 2014 - 21:10:57 CEST
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