ORIGINAL: smcharg
.......................If you don't want to spend more, buy the cheaper stuff. You should be able to take a $900US plane and be competitive if you are already competitive with the newest platform. Newer technology will always cost more period and regardless of the facet we are discussing. I thnk the question begs, what makes the top fliers, top fliers?
I like this. Something else that smcharg touched on in his last post and paraphrased by me is "who are we competing against"??
From my perspective I am mostly competing against myself. I also like to compete against the guy who is ever-so-slightly better than me. I mostly don't need better equipment for that (in fact, we fly the same equipment). Mostly I just need to practise more.
We had a guy coming into our Sportsman class this year with a Wind S 50. He cleaned up against the 2m ships in his class. Why? He took advise on setup and practised and listened. Most of the "whingers" that I have met think they know it all, don't practise and look for every excuse in the book as to why they can't improve.
That said, a uniform weight measurement for IC and EP would be welcomed.