I also understood Brian's comments at the Shootout judging refresher to be, he doesn't want to see displacement in a vertical or lateral plane in any snaps except half snaps. He clearly stated the rules currently allow it, but then sounded as if it would be his mission to get rid of that. I firmly and whole-heartedly agree with Will's comments on page one, this would be encouraging if not demanding "cheated snaps".

Fact of life that we all must accept, although we fly "scale" planes in a scale manor, there are differences. In the case of snap departure (i.e. a plane is flying at 100' feet and does 1 pos snap, now it's flying at 105' on the same flight path) our wing loadings and lack of inertia will cause the plane to rise as the sudden pitching is initiated (needed to actually stall the wing abruptly to achieve auto rotation). Some will argue that as the planes rotates through 180 deg (inverted) this positive pitch will now bring the altitude back down to the original altitude. I disagree, too many things have changed in that first 180 degrees, like speed for one, which greatly affects inertia. Now, if my 40% plane weighed 300 lbs, this entire scenario would be different, if the plane did rise, it would be a very minor amount. It would also take far less initial pitch to achieve the stalled wing condition we need (this is because the angle of attack on the wing prior to the snap would have had to be higher to achieve the necessary lift to sustain altitude). Now I really like scale aerobatic planes, but I don't like the thought of a 300lb imac plane.

Ok, now for my disclaimer, I'm no N G near (engineer), can't even spell it, just a guy who like planes and have been flying them for a long time (no I will not disclose). This is my laymen’s interpretation of a whole lot of technical jargon, quote at your on risk, disagree if you like, flame if your insecure about your social status (I wonder if that will serve as a flame deterrent, probably not, so flame away if you like).

One last thing on the original topic, down line and up line snaps, if you ask 100 IMAC flyers how to do them, you'll get at least 80 different answers, 60 are probably not incorrect. There are many different variables, aircraft type, setup (tail heavy? control throws?) wind, elevation (density altitude) , airspeed at the time of the snap. The key is to show the judges all of the criteria. Doesn't matter what you do with the sticks as long as all the criteria are met, pitch and yaw departure, auto rotation for the entire prescribed degrees of rotation, track of the planes CG remains the same after the snap as before. Learning to do good snaps takes lots and lots of practice. Many if not most of the "big names" do them incorrectly and get away with it. The real art some of the best have mastered is doing them on that fine line, where the judge has to ask himself, "am I absolutely sure that the criteria was NOT met?" If I'm not sure, I must give him the score.

Sorry to be so long winded on this. Fredo, welcome to IMAC, good luck to you, I know you'll have a blast. Get hooked up with guys who can critique you and listen to what they are seeing in your snaps, then tweak from there. You'll be fine. By the way, if you run across Steve Corram or Brian Simpson from Perth tell them the US Navy guy says hello and I'm still indebted to them for their hospitality.
Kev