ORIGINAL: aerobear
ORIGINAL: J Lachowski
What we will get with eliminating the weight rule is noisy IMAC type planes because people know that CD's have not been enforcing the noise rule at local contests.......
So what? I say bring 'em on.
I find noisy planes as irritating as the next guy but wouldn't it be great to see a sportsman class with 6 guys flying small gas powered IMAC style
planes? Better than three guys flying pure pattern planes. Ready made pattern pilots don't appear out of thin air, fully committed to the ''purity'' of pattern. They have to start somewhere and often that is with an affordable, quick build small gas plane. These guys are some low hanging fruit for pattern recruits. Alienating them is shooting ourselves in the foot. Get them hooked and worry about getting them pure later.
Most new pattern pilots will try their first contest at their local field or a nearby club. They will fly whatever they have. If you don't get them here, you won't get them anywhere.
You are not going to save any fields by prohibiting a noisy plane from flying in a pattern contest if the same guy can fly there the other 363 days of the year. If the field has a noise problem then fine, no fly.
Pattern purity = country club mentality = declining participation.
You do realize that most if not all CDs of local contests allow any AMA legal airplane in Sportsman so that argument doesn't hold water except at the NATS where Sportsman is not flown. If you showed up at St. Clairsville and wanted to fly Sportsman with a 100cc Yak none of us would stop you...you'd be welcome with open arms.
As for the noise rule saving a field, perhaps not, but it may save a venue for a pattern meet for the next year. My local field has a noise limit and they have no equipment for testing or enforcement other than our ears telling us a plane is loud but it saved our field and it's there, just a rule to live by and if I want to fly there and practice I need to meet it.