Oh well, you can't blame me for looking for some means to meet you this year.

You may be right about the "extinction" thing. but if there is a compromise out there somewhere
that will not result in compromising the reason SPA was created--they will find it.

It could be that we are talking about apples and oranges, and the two are just different enough that they can't be mixed well. If that's the case, there is the probability that people will just have to come to a point where they can either accept and support SPA as it now stands, or, if there is enough grass-roots support, form their own organization without trying to combine them under one umbrella. There will always be people who prefer the simpler, lower speed pattern experience, and those who love to fly the high performance birds in competition. Back when I competed in the mid-80s, when I passed out of Novice, I just wasn't comfortable with the pressures placed on Sportsman and above to compete. Although I could appreciate watching a competition of high performance birds, I always preferred, and was challenged enough by the simpler planes, and slower speeds--it's not an "age" thing--it's a personality thing. My blood pressure would go up flying the h.p. planes. Some of the reason might be I never got to be all that proficient a pilot. With the h.p. planes, there was very little room for error, (ie I lost my Dirty Birdy in an inverted pass when it got too close to the ground--you know the rest).

For me, the 4S engines are a tremendous addition to the SPA competition, and I'm glad SPA uses them. It gives me the slower, constant speed that makes a maneuver graceful and enjoyable to me, yet it increases the vertical performance enough to allow effortless larger maneuvers.

Maybe you can appreciatle what is good about each, and fly both, (if a BPA-[B for ballistic] goup is formed). Or perhaps a compromise can be reached that will satisfy everyone, and piped flying can be part of an SPA event. At least this thread can be printed out, and used as a basis for discussion of the issue in the future.

Hope to see you someday.

Remember---Don Lowe used to fly SPA planes, (and has recently), then he moved on to pipes and retracts, then on to turnaround. He can do it all, and enjoy it all.