My club holds two pattern contests a year, one of them being a one day contest. Another club 2 hours away also holds a one day contest. Neither contest draws more participation. In fact some guys state that they won't make a 6 or 8 hour drive for just 4 rounds of flying.

Sportsman rules state that any Airplane under the AMA 55 lb limit can fly. I have seen some IMAC guys bring their giant scale airplanes. They had no real advantage. IMO in Sportsman you have one guy flying a well dialed in Kaos and one guy flying an Allure, the Kaos could very well end up being the winner. Regardless of what airplane you have, it still needs to be flown.

I would love to see more participation. I don't think that changing the format is the way to do it. The guys that we need to bend over backwards to attract are not guys that are going to stick with it. We need more and better ambassadors of pattern. We need guys that will mentor other club members that may be interested. IMO if we convince a guy with a well flying sport airplane to enter a contest and then stick with him and he experiences some success then we have a potential new pattern guy. We just can't expect new guys to just show up.

How does the average Joe R/C pilot even hear about pattern? When I was learning to fly in the late 1970's I lived for those days when the new R/C modeler or Model Aviation magazine would show up. Especially MA since it had contest results listed in the pattern section. I forget who did the writing but sometimes it would list what airplane, engine, pipe, prop and radio combination guys were flying. There hasn't been a pattern forum in that magazine for years now.

No sir, the answer to gaining more participation is not changing our format or equipment. It's promoting out little sport of pattern like we used to do way back when. Jim surely remembers the days of 75 guys showing up for a contest, I do.