Blackshark...true that. But you have to realize, peoples perceptions on a flight is based solely on what they can see.

People that have never gotten into pattern flying dont understand what they are supposed to be looking at. All they see is a cuban 8. To them every cuban 8 in the contest looks exactly the same.

They arent looking for 15 degrees in the wings, or exit and entry altitude, was it in the box, equal radius, tail wiggles on the stall turns,pitch change before snaps, etc. They've never been taught the finer points of precision flying....so it all looks the same to them. After they see the same thing 20 times in a row...their immediate thought is "this is boring, why dont they do something cool like hover".

The last pattern contest I went to, I printed out 10 copies of the pattern rulebook, including the judging part and all the sequences. I passed out all 10 copies at the pattern contest to spectators. I have no doubt that by reading that information, and the discussions we had while watching the event made it much more interesting. By the end of the contest, many of them were watching the flights closely trying to see if they could "find waldo" and catch the mistakes.

One pilot zero'd a maneuver, and everyone caught it because they now knew what to look for. Pattern is much more enjoyable when you understand it.

Id say competition in general is in a slump due to the small electric stuff gaining popularity and the 3D craze...give it time...as the new guys get better they will start looking for competition. Question is what form of competition it ends up being. I think pattern is going to evolve over the next decade. I think that we are going to see more freedom in the sequences in the form of more maneuvers with "options", an increase in freestyle/pattern mixes, and newer 3D maneuvers being adopted as recognized aerobatic maneuvers.