ooofff...just stumbled onto this thread.. With regards to the P and F format at local contests:

The NSRCA has no official say in what type of format the CD chooses to use. I can lobby on the part of the NSRCA to district 6 CD's, but ultimately its up to each of them to decide how they wish to run their contest. If there is enough influence, I'm sure the CD would be inclined to change the current format to one that better fits his participants. If the format is not generally well received, he will change or likely lose entry/participation.

Personally, I like the current format (drop one P from Sat., add one F). On some occasions, the F sequence flying may be mediocre...espescially if I were the only FAI pilot signed up. On other occassions, some great, competitive flying occurs on Sunday. If I wanted to fly the P on sunday, I'm sure the judges would be happy to judge me as such, so that I could analyze my own raw scores to improve/perfect my P pattern flying. However, I would expect that round to be scored as "null" in the scoring system so as not to effect the outcome of those who want to compete with/against one another in the F pattern on Sunday.

If the majority sooner or later wishes not to fly the F on Sunday, I'm sure CD's will begin to accomodate that.

BTW, both of the proposed masters patterns look very challenging and well thought out.

-mark