ORIGINAL: VerneK
Scott,
Archie also hit the nail on the head. I've always been an advocate of bringing back Expert but never though about it being flown at the Nats. Archie's right, there are no more sites available at the Nats. The only option available that I see would be to drop Intermediate from the Nats and I'm quite certain that there are any number of Intermediate pilots who wouldn't vote for that! The only other way would be to try and squeeze Expert in somewhere which would be an absolute nightmare for the Event Director. Site 1 & 3 are already locked down with FAI and Masters. I'm frankly not sure about Site 4 because I never get over there between flying in Masters and calling for Andrew in FAI, but I suspect there's little if any room to squeeze in another class.
Verne Koester
ORIGINAL: CLRD2LAND
Arch, there are always exceptions to the rule. Chris Odom, Brett, and others are the exceptions. If we want to continually grow pattern, we need to look at the majority and not the gifted few.
Verne hit the nail on the head which is why a new class would be perfect to accomplish this. Why would anyone be against a new class? It just doesn't make sense to me. Is it change? Is it making a class smaller? Remember the gripe about Masters taking too long? It takes long because of the size not the number of maneuvers. This would be Masters fliers that aren't ready for a more difficult sequence and for those coming out of Advanced and getting ready to take Tony down....wait, I didn't say that.
I'm interested in why a new class would not be the answer.
There isn't a great deal of time over there to squeeze them in. Not saying it couldn't be done, but you would be adding to the work load of the scorer, line chiefs and site director. Even with the same number of pilots, another class means more tweaking of the judging assignments and the people who actually work the site wouldn't get any kind of break. Logistically it isn't as easy as it sounds.
What happens when we dumb down Advanced, and make Expert the new Advanced, then the gap between Expert and Masters grows, do we create another class? The class schedule works. It should be a challenge for someone moving from Advanced to being competitive in Masters. That will be the case with Expert. You are going to be flying against guys that have been in the class for years. Every year there are new guys making the finals. Marcio Jorge made it this year, after taking a year or so to get comfortable in Masters. The process works. Even with creating a new class, you are going to have guys that are consistently at the top of Masters, so now you'll just end up with guys complaining after making the jump from Expert. I don't see any reason that if you are capable of finishing in the top 5 in Advanced at the NATS that you can't fly the Masters sequence. And if you aren't at that level, then don't move up. With the way the point rule is now, you have to fly a LOT of contests and beat a LOT of people in a season to have to move up unless you are flying Sportsman.
At the end of the day this is COMPETITION...you are going to only have 1 winner at each contest from each class. We don't need to turn this into a participation event like little league has become where everyone gets a trophy.
There are many guys who have been upset with guys winning and staying in Masters, or coming back to Masters. I personally don't have an issue with it. I really enjoy flying against Tony, as I know that I have to fly my best to beat him. I have taken rounds from him, so he can be beat, but over the course of the event, he has out flown me. I take that as a challenge, not a reason to see him want to move out of Masters.
Arch