Re: Purchased VP hubs at the West Baden Indoor WC

From: <leop_at_lyradev.com>
Date: 29 Mar 2018 03:49:04 +0000

Allowing purchased vp hubs will not keep the F1D class growing. Nearly all of the fliers in the 2018 Indoor WC championship are capable of building and have built there own vp hubs. But, it is quite a bit easier to buy a Treger hub than to build one's own and the Treger hub works well out of the box.

 Note that my survey was of entrants who used, for at least one round, a purchased vp hub. Many of the entrants who used vp hubs also had available their self-built vp hubs.
 

 The 2018 Indoor WC was the first WC where a vp hub was needed since the rules changed in 2015. I found it quite amusing that the US senior team, who all used self-built vp hubs, did quite well, all finishing in the top six and within a bit more than a minute of sweeping the podium (note that the US RWC who used a Treger hub did not fare so well). Buying a vp hub is not the same as understanding that hub well. Also remember that no Indoor WC, at sites where vp hubs are necessary, has yet been won by an entrant using a purchased vp hub (no one buys a fixed pitch hub as used at the Slanic mine)
 

 The outdoor equivalent of F1D is F1B. Since the demise of the BOM rule for most outdoor classes, the F!B class has become a class of purchased planes at a very great cost per model. I do not want F1D to go that way. I want to continue the F1D tradition, following in the footsteps of such fliers as Jim Richmond, where the best entrants are the best builders and fliers, not just the financially well off.
 

 If we want to increase the size of F1D entrant pool in the US (recognizing that the F1D class in the US is often the largest class at many indoor contests), we need to do two things. First, we need to have a way for people to get started in F1D without getting frustrated by how hard it is to fly an early in the learning and building process F1D. To that goal, beginners need to build a first (or second and third) F1D that can fly well and is sturdy enough to last. This means that one cannot copy Kang Lee's, Brett Sanborn's, or John Kagan's models at first. Second, we need to have places to fly that are amenable to F1D and other high performance indoor models. This last point shows the importance of the AMA quickly building the proposed indoor facility at Muncie. The AMA (and US FAI) outdoor program is healthy in no small part because we have superb national outdoor facilities in Muncie and elsewhere. We need the same for Indoor.
 

 LeoP
Received on Thu Mar 29 2018 - 03:49:10 CEST