Mike,
Its too bad there is such an impression that a well practiced pilot flying a sport model can't compete with a 2M model in Sportsman.

All I can say it this....Go to the D7 Webpage and look a the current D champs standings.

http://www.klauscompass.com/2004scores_10_21_04.mht

Terry Hemmis, A GIRL!!!!!! is in first place for the District champs right now. She has been flying a Tiger 60 ARF with a OS 61 all year long. She practices some but not as much as she would like. Typical of most of us eh? We'll see how she does next week at our D Champs.

But the guy in 3rd place for the D champs is flying a Summit 120 on a YS 120.
If you look at the results of each contest There are about 3-5 pilots in each of the events she flew and some she won, some she was 2nd and some she was 3rd. Never was she last, and never did she get her butt kicked by a bigger more modern pattern model. basically no butt kicking goign on.

She attended 6 events so far in the results up through contest #13. There are a couple others in there that I know she attended one of them. These results on not on the web page yet.

1st of 3
2nd of 3
1st of 2
3rd of 5
3rd of 4
3rd of 5

So she was not last getting her butt kicked, and yet she has been competing against older pattern models and some more current models in the 120 class. Persistence and having fun is what inspired her to travel to the NATS to watch.

The reason she didn't win the events all year long is not from lack of model. Its from lack of practice, and preparation. She had some engine troubles she had a couple events. This is lack of preparation. This is the key to flying well. Preparation! Both your skills and the model.

I don't know what to tell you other than this is a good record for a first year at pattern. Its also a good result considering she is a school principal and can only fly on Sat and Sun throughout the year. So she only gets 2 days of practice a week even in the summer time. The school admin people work all summer long. She has a load of fun at every event and has yet to complain about getting beat by a 2M pattern model. The current D7 situation is the person that is flying better wins, not the person with the nicer pattern model.

Maybe the encouragement of folks flying these sport models will bring more people to the sport than chasing them away. In D7 you will notice that Sportsman is as populated as any other class in the contest. 3-5 people per event. These are events average 20-25 pilots for all 5 classes. There have been a total of 18 different pilots in Sportsman in D7 so far this year out of the 13 events that are counting. So they are getting about 1 new person for every event. This is a huge turnout in Sportsman. I know some districts that are lucky to have any Sportsman pilots or they have a handful that attend the events. I don't think a person will feel slighted if he or she gets beat by a pilot that is flying better.

But then again who am I to argue the point. I'm out here to be the best pattern flyer I can be. The actual results are nice, but in reality my wife is not going to love me anymore. I'm not going to make it on Sportscenter, or even the DWINGS channel so in the real results...I'm doing it to better myself and to better the activity that I love to to do.

If you have the same goals in your flying, to get better, then give me a call and we'll go flying. If you need a new plaque for the wall....I have some I'll send you, just replace the picture with your picture of choice. There is something that everybody eventually learns. There will always be a better pilot. The game is more than who has the most skill and its more than who has the best equipment. It is who has been better prepared, and who is dedicated to reaching their goals. If the goal is 1st place in Sportsman then you have a pretty easy to reach goal. If your goal is to fly the best you can then a Tiger 6 or even a Kaos can teach you a bunch about setting up, trimming, and flying the model.

I would rather coach a pilot that is flying a Tiger 60, and truly wants to learn and get better, than a person that has the latest and greatest equipment and knows it all.

Just my advice to the new guys starting out.
Troy