TOPIC: Review of 2012 NATS

glaucolago wrote: I could not attend unlimited contest so can't say anything about the slow pace but as the RES CD I can say two things about the pace.

Maybe because it was the start of the Nats but almost all the time we had to wait for one or two pilots missing during the call time. We could be rigorous and send the flight group without these pilots but we were nice and waited for them.

Also I had to remind about getting new flight groups, it wasn't automatic like in the past when we had an impound and things had a bit more of a sequence.

Not sure exactly how to improve.

As schedule goes, I personally don't like 2 meter class. Will support if scheduled but would love to see it replaced by something like ALES or F5J. If scheduled in the middle of the regular winched Nats, this would be an opportunity for a break for everyone working at the flight line. No field setup change, no trolls, no line breaks, just relax and either fly or watch like everyone else.

Glauco

I have no idea how schedules are set, so I can't praise or be critical of how the schedule is set. I can only look what my club flies, what I fly and what works for me.

Two Meter - Almost no one in my club flies 2 meter gliders on the winch or hi-start. The 2 meter gliders today are all electric. And I am not going to buy a 2M competition wnch glider because if I bought 1, I would want to buy 2. If you put it in the middle of the schedule then whatever is on the other side from Unlimited won't see me on the list. And based on the chatter at the field during Unlimited I think a lot of those pilots flew 2M just to fill in between RES/NOS and Unlimited. I didn't hear people saying they love 2M.

RES - popular in my club, but mostly 3M birds. We have a monthly RES contest. If RES had been next to unlimited, I would have flown RES.

ALES - most popular monthly contest in my club. If ALES had been next to Unlimited, I would have flown ALES.

Unlimited - this is what we fly most of the time. If you aren't flying ALES you are flying something 3M off the winch.

DLG - Fairly popular, but not as much as a few years ago. It exploded for a while but has cooled down quite a bit. Still, we have a monthly DLG contest.

Next year?

The more I think of it, the more I think 2 days for unlimited is enough, and it means that people might have more time to fly other events. Just get the pace up to 7 rounds per day and 2 days will be plenty. With 10 winches and 10 pilot flight groups you should be able to do that even with 100 pilots. Our first round on day one of Unlimited this year was 75 minutes. (I believe it was announced). So 7 rounds takes 9 hours + 30 minutes for lunch. Start at 9, finish by 5 or 5:30.

The NATs schedule is not going to be aligned for my convenience, but here is my ideal line-up. I won't be flying 2m/DLG. Might fly F3J.

Starting on Saturday with each event 2 days.- 2M/DLG, RES/NOS, Unlimited, F3J, ALES in that sequence. That would have me there for RES and Unlimited for sure. (4 days) Then I would probably fly F3J and ALES too for another 4 days. So I have 8 days of flying, 4 days of driving. Basically 2 weeks of NATs. If 2m/DLG were Sat/Sun, those would be my driving days and I could fit this into a standard 2 week vacation.

Selfish? Well, that is what would work best for me. It puts all the unlimited events back to back with the exploding ALES event on the end, opening for the electric sailplane events.

If things keep going as they are, I predict in 2 years, ALES will rival ulimited for participation.

It has to be said that this year's Nats was also a great success! I think there was only one group reflight. The pace was smooth and steady with more than 1,000 launches overall. The officials and volunteers got the job done! Thank you!

Ok, I promised myself to wait a couple of weeks. let my feelings on this years "Glider Boot Camp"simmer down a bit.
I know there are countless volunteer hours spent on the NATS every year.Volunteer time for which I am very, very thankfull.
I am writing this not to belittle or in anyway lessen those efforts.

here is my story, let me get it off my chest ( so to speak)

I came to Nostalga with this big wooden plane, took most of the winter to build. I made an effort to build it a true Nostalga plane, uncluding a wooden skid rail. It flies like a dream, but landing requires a good guess .That is the way it was in those days, no dorks and no skegs.
Everything went pretty good on the first flight, got my time and a pretty good landing.Even that the ground was hard as cement.
Second flight we had a little down wind push on landing. My plane slid past the 100 mark on the tape, did a little wing turn.
Ok, not bad the nose measured about 10 point landing.
My timer noticed however, the wing tip was over that little piece of string.........THE SAFETY LINE!!!
ACORDING TO THE RULES, THAT WAS A ZERO FLIGHT!!!
Of course you can not recover from a zero flight score, so it was a zero for the NATS for me.
I did not think that was fair then and I have not changed my mind. But I promised myself to wait for a few weeks to 'cool off'
So....a lot of work building the plane, a 14 hour drive and a pretty good chunck of change done in by a "safety line".
Please consider this when planing for next year.
Peter Schlitzkus

I think Glauco and Ed are looking at 2M all wrong but that's their problem. :)

What about some 1 day events? I can probably make a single 2 day event. But I could maybe do 3 single day events or maybe a 2 day and a 1 day.

Ryan