RE: IMAC
Yep, keeping that baseline is hard but it's the foundation for building upon everything else. I've burned tanks of fuel trying to get that reasonably consistant.
I had a discussion with my brother the other day and he mentioned at one comp, a local resident complained a rolling circle was being flown over his house all weekend. According to Google Earth, the house is about 670M (2200ft)!!!!! away from the pilots area. Why on Earth a 40% plane needs to be flying that far out is beyond me but it would appear to be part of the more power, fly faster, need to fly bigger to "slow" the maneuver down trend that IMAC seems to be moving towards.
Even in pattern, flying faster and further out helps with perceived speed regulation and gives you plenty of time to do stuff, but to fly at the 150m line you really need to work the throttle hard to keep the plane chugging along upwind, downwind, upline or downline.....