Idea behind this thread is cool. "Small" electric plane aerobatic competition. Been thinking along that line for a couple months now.

In our club, we have some tentative buy-in from our club BOD and thus far about a dozen fliers for an intra-club Team Electric Aerobatic League, flying smaller low cost electric aerobats sort of similar to what is proposed on the thread. Goals - have fun; increase flying skills across board of all participants' and increase pattern flying familiarity. Electric planes only, there will be an upper size limit, not sure if it is watts, size of plane, weight or what but we recognize size has some advantages and we want to keep this affordable and all planes at least competitive. We plan to allow any type of electric within the "limit". Mini-IMAC, mini-pattern or mini-sport as long as it is electric ( a large % of our club already fly electric, some exclusively, others fly electric and glow.)

We plan to form teams, and will devise a scoring system that gives as much benefit to a team for moving say a team's #3 guy up in the standings list 4 places as it does for moving a team's #1 flier up 4 places, so we don't just focus on best fliers. Thus teams have an incentive to help coach lower ranked fliers to improve their team's standings. (Scoring system will be patterened after the team scoring process that collegiate waterskiing teams use in their team competitions.)

Some issues we are wrestling with and would like input on how others have approached it are: 1) - specific sequences flown by all pilots vs. allow individual pilots to devise own unique sequence from among a list of allowable maneuvers (only sportsman and intermediate class maneuvers make the list.) We have a few fliers that are a bit fearful of even the sportsman sequences - are there real benefits to being forced to fly only the sportsman & intermediate sequences ? There is a wide variety of pilot skill in our interested folks. ; 2) - How to adequately train a bunch of sport fliers (newbie electric pattern fliers) to be low level pattern judges overnight ?? We are aware of NCRSA judging materials available; 3) - use the traditional pattern 120 degree box as in F3a pattern or do not use a box - like in Sr. Pattern Assoc. ?? Since planes are smaller, they will tend to fly closer in, and constraints of a traditional box on newbie pattern fliers flying close in could be problematic - tough to stay within the box close in where small planes are comfortable to fly & be seen; 4) where should the "size" limit be set if it is a WATTAGE limit ? At what point do larger planes start to have a significant advantage at doing Sportsman & Intermediate maneuvers ? But since we have a couple of fliers with 4S battery powered Diamontes etc. we want to be as inclusive of them as possible unless they have an huge advantage... It is a balance of competitive field of planes vs. as much inclusion of existing fliers' planes as possible. Any thoughts ?

Thanks in advance.

Skitimberlake