Yep you're all over it BigNed.

Bottom line: the thrill of pattern is in the doing, not the watching.

And if you REALLY want a thrill, try F-05

-Mike

If you master pattenr and 3d you got it in the bag

[link=http://www.mini-iac.com/Portals/57ad7180-c5e7-49f5-b282-c6475cdb7ee7/Unlimited_B.pdf]Imac or pattern boring? Click here.[/link]

I prefer IMAC to 2Metre pattern because to me its almsots the same thing but the planes look much better

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Are you telling me this is an ugly plane? The PLANE, not the pilot

-Mike

I have spent the 2 years i have been flying, trying to 3D really good. now i have started IMAC and have to say, going to an IMAC event and flying the pattern the whole day is way more fun than just going to the feild for a day and flying 3d the whole time. the people are great and when you have the pressure to fly better than the others, it makes you Concentrate on getting every little tiny thing perfect. I LOVE IT

Imac or pattern, get out there and COMPETE!!! THAT is where the fun is guys. The rest is just fluff. I know I know, some guys are like "I just wanna fly". Well fine, but you're missing out on some great fun and some great people. Plus you don't have to dodge the old guy with the trainer who can't turn right so he takes your hat off

-Mike

Solution:

Do the IMAC event and then compete in the freestyle.
Most IMAC contests have a freestyle also.

I'm with you!!!

...Says "Mr. bringing home two golds in one weekend"

i fly pattern and am dedicated to it beside a few 3D foammies and even i admit that i find it extremely boring to watch but its fun to fly it.

Having grown up around an airport, I spent many hours in my schoolboy days just watching real planes fly. It was not all that "exciting", not like watching or flying 3D, but it was fascinating enough, and still fascinates me to watch. 3D is great sport, no question about it. But flying a nicely done scale model in realistic scale-like flight takes a lot of skill and concentration. No wobbles, no over-correcting, no jittering all over the place, just going where you want to go like you were on rails, has a beauty all its own. Flying pattern is great discipline for learning those skills. Watching pattern, if you don't fly pattern, I will admit can get boring pretty fast. But flying pattern is about as intense for concentration as anything I can imagine. Plus the thought and care that goes into setting up, aligning and trimming, weight/strength economy, powerplant efficiency & reliabilty--so many details honed to a gnat's eyebrow in a competitive pattern ship, these all develop techniques that contribute to any category of modeling & flying.

I was at a scale meet this past weekend. My favorite maneuver to watch was the "simple" horizontal eight. Most entries flew their figures the way a four-year old makes his first letters with pencil and paper--jerky, wobbly, drifting off and abruptly correcting, no proportion to speak of. When the best pilots flew a nice round circle with consistent bank, constant speed and constant altitude, and came around to the same center they entered from, and then did the same on the other side, that was a pleasure to watch. We had a dazzling mid-day demo of big composite 3D ARFs, and that was spectacular flying. But I still looked forward to the afternoon rounds and more (occasionally) flawless maneuvers.

how about you with your 1st place??[>:]

MHESTER hit the mark solid - I have yet to compete, but in my area there's a small contingent of dedicated IMAC guys. Just talking with them, spotting for them, etc is a blast. Granted, sitting in the pits watching them run their patterns isn't the most fun, other than watching to see if one guy nails the move he was having problems with or if he missed it again. They're encouraging as well - asking me if I'm going to be in the next contest, etc. Even though I don't have an IMAC plane, I can still compete in Basic. I've gone to a couple of the local events and it's great to see and talk to the pilots, cheer them on and etc; I know when I start competing they'll do the same for me. RC Flying is a community and competition helps people to feel a part of that IMHO.

J

And on top of all said here - The first time you handle and get to fly a top of the line 2M plane you will understand why pattern is so enjoying for those that do it. The pure beauty of these planes (sitting on the ground or flying) is staggering, The precision they make possible, has to be experienced to be understood. AND when you are finished fly a sequence there is nothing to stop you from making a few low inverted passes or doing a little hovering.

In my opinion, a really interesting flight cannot exist without both some pattern and 3d aerobatics, so i think that the 3D versus pattern argument is getting a little thinbring on Artistic aero or freestyle

Havent read the whole thread but I can guess...

You can not judge the difficulty or talent required of pattern flying until you have done it - competitively - be that at good club level or otherise.

These days, with advances in design and construction, and the playstation generation 3D is becoming "thenorm"....even the definition is up for more debate than how well it is performed.

Freestyle Aero should the ultimate game....... this can not be done with a fun fly or a pure pattern ship but the best judges will award the prize to those that combine each to the best effect.

I know plenty of people that can be seen to be excellent "3D pilots" and most are real younguns...... ask them to do a precise long slow roll from one end of the field to the other and thats another matter.

The best freestyle pilots in the world are those that are accomplished at the very difficult art of F3a and the artistic art of freestyle / 3D.

To be good at one is not enough, and these days the 3D bit is the easiest bit..... whilst the F3a (albeit through its changes) is the the hardest, most basic and oldest bit !

NEVER knock someone trying to achieve F3a perfection...........chances are you will never come close !

AMEN!!!!

Nice one!

Mike McConville had an excellent article on this very subject in the new 3D Flyer magazine.

I used to think this too... I flew only freestyle (basically, I just hacked up the sky and pissed everyone one off around me!) after years of doing anything I wanted, I felt "confined" at first. While trying to fly the patterns, I quickly became frustrated that my plane was not trimmed well enough and so the biggest challenge with pattern is building a ship that will fly accurate enough to perform the manoevers well. Pilot skill is of course, important, but a well trimmed plane is more important.

With a 3D plane, you build, you fly, you eventually crash. Don't argue here either - there is no 3D pilot around that has planes that are YEARS old. I've even seen TOC pilots slap the ground on numerous occasions. With pattern, your planes last a lot longer, and you truly (over time) learn every in and out about aircraft performance, how simple changes effect stability and handling, and in general, how to be a better pilot.

Pattern flying is like golf.. it really is a game against yourself... if you play golf once, you likely will hate it as it is difficult to play and takes a lot of time. Same thing with pattern flying - but once you get into it, you can really find yourself improving your flying skills.

While 3D is cool, anyone with enough money and patience can learn to fly most of the 3D basic manoevers - I say that because really to get good at 3D, crashing is very likely. You don't need to crash a lot to get good at pattern as your path is much higher.

If you go to any field you will find scores of weekend warriors hacking up the sky like I used to, and same with 3D'rs, but to see someone flying pattern who is truly talented, well - its like watching the real thing...

I enjoy and fly both - and I'm no expert at either, but when I see a really good 3D pilot going at or a really good pattern pilot going through the advanced patterns - I'd rather watch the pattern flyer!!

DP

wrong wrong wrong how do you know that mystic meg!?

I must be the one exception to your rule.

[quote][With a 3D plane, you build, you fly, you eventually crash. Don't argue here either - there is no 3D pilot around that has planes that are YEARS old./quote]

You might want to revise that, I know a few planes that keep going.

ANY display can get boring to watch, even 3d if it goes for too longm which to me is like 10 minutes or it is not varied, usually if it is highly varied and theres alot of diff stuff and a good pace 10 mins os ok, but I would only go for 5 and make the crowd beg for more

heres my POV. pattern flyers are skilled, very skilled in their feild, flying precise smooth aerobatics. Us 3Ders are skiled in our feild, however, we've both gotta respect each other flying styles for what they are

Yup, though if you excell at both you certainly will score points in freestyle/artistic because that is what freestyle/artistic is about, blending the two together to get the best of bother worlds, smooth flying and eating up physics.