ORIGINAL: MMcConville

I like the direction this is going. At the Shootout Quique and I were discussing the same issue of too many snaps. Having both sat in the judges chair and flown the snap happy patterns in our classs, it because really clear. As a judge you find yourself looking at snaps so much that you dont look a closely at the rest of the maneuver as you should. As a pilot as well as in developing new pilot's skills, I think we are becomming so biased toward snaps that other more difficult and import flying skills are being overlooked and lost. There seems to be a loss in the overall quality of rollers as an example. Much harder to do properly, but not as important to the score. At the shootout, in most of our 5 knowns and 5 unknowns there were very few maneuvers that didnt contain at least one snap. Sometimes multiple snap elements.
I like snaps and they are important to be part of our schedules, but IMHO they are becoming too important and over emphasized.
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I agree with you Mike. I guess since I flew pattern for 20 years that I like the geometry and the skill that it takes to perform the perfect sequence. I have flown IMAC the past 2 season and enjoy it very much, but I don't see the clean sequences that I would like to see. To pull off a clean roller to me is more impressive than watching a pilot struggle through a sequence and only hit the snaps. I do believe that snaps are a part of our sequences, but we are so involved in the snap that we miss the overall maneuver. It seems a pilot can miss a line, hit the snap and score 9.5. Nail the line, miss the snap by 10 degrees and score a 4.

Just my 2 cents,

Rick