ORIGINAL: danamania

What I am learning about the pattern community is that the perfect flying pattern plane is a moving target depending on which pilot or competitor you are asking LOL! The perfect flying pattern plane for the Sportsman-Intermediate pilot may have qualities that the Masters-FAI level pilot finds undesirable. Some guys just want to be able to fly fast, especially against the wind, and if the airframe is not designed to do so it will fall short of perfection. The newer competitor may want a wing that is more forgiving as the lower sequences do not have snaps or spins; from Advanced on up, wings that snap and spin precisely are a desired quality and that changes the compromises the designer will make in the first place. Who are you designing your pattern plane for and what qualities do they consider perfect? And if those qualities are in common with a lot of other competition pilots, is it possible that the designs that one can conceive of may share many characteristics with the already successful designs out there? All this from a pilot, not a designer, so you guys know more about it but - who is the guy who will judge perfection - that's the one to keep in mind right?