What many are not considering is that folks WILL figure out how to FUND what they WANT TO DO. PERIOD!!! In my half-vast experience in pattern of the past 30 years now (off and on during my military career), I know LOTS of folks who were scraping out a living in the military and somehow could afford pattern. Same with IMAC, more recently. BOTH games are expensive.

Pattern, and IMAC, or Helis, or Scale all take MONEY to do at a certain competitive level. Folks who WANT to do these activities figure out how to PAY for those activities.

The issue of "Pattern is Dead" is an interesting topic that flares up frequently. Pattern ain't DEAD, but it's bleeding pretty badly. And probably for LOTS of reasons, but I would put these two things forward (as if they haven't been said before)....

1. Pattern is "grown" by having pattern-activities (practice, primers, workshops, websites, advertising, promotion) in front of the RC'er who is looking for something after his trainer.

2. Pattern will "Grow" only to the natural limit of the rules and the competition environment. The guy that WANTS to do pattern will FIND pattern (see 1. above).