ORIGINAL: JOHNY-RCU
don't be fooled, these guys spent years flying pattern, and spent years study and mastering wind correction , perspective and attitudes of their planes.
ORIGINAL: highK
a few years ago a guy showed up at one of the larger So Cal contests who had no contest exerperience. he entered advanced, as did another guy who was flying his first imac event. one of the guys was mike caglia, who went to top ten finish in the TOC, the other guy was mark leseberg. and if memory serves me, bill hempel started in unlimited.
of course, in that same contest some sandbagger named scott anderson flew basic.
Not to mention that these guys are very talented and not what I would refer to as the norm in skill progression. I'm not sure myself as far as Mark is concerned but I do know that Bill And Mike did have pattern experience. Its kind of odd, I was on the phone just a couple of days ago with Bill and we were talking about the fact that we did meet in person when the IMAC regionals were here in Morgan Hill. I was shocked when he had told me it was his first year in IMAC and he won the Unlimited Championships. However he was flying R/C well before he could drive.
For as many times I have seen people start at intermediate and above and be successful I have seen twice as many move into a class when they were not ready, struggle and then quit.
Shawn