ORIGINAL: twtaylor
I don't mean to start a pattern/Imac war but rather to have possibly a meaningful dialog on the things I see in these forums as "problems".
The answer I spoke of you wouldn't like is to bring back the box, prescribe centering as the center of the box and add a 200 meter flight path rule. This would likely make some 40% er's obsolete.
Is this subject worth debating in a meaningful way? I think so.
I am replying only if you are not trying to have a IMAC/Pattern debate. This accomplishes nothing but ruffling people's feathers and will never be solved. This is two orginazations with two different rules and will always be different. Pattern has their rules to solve certain problems and IMAC has different rules to accomadate the same problems. Both organizations watch how the other handle problems talk about among themselves but come up with thier own solutions.
I have been involved in IMAC for over 10 years and very active participate, CD, and former Regional Director. If you truly want answers then you will be open minded about the answers you get. I will gladly give you any answers that I know and will gladly give my phone number for us to talk if you don't understand the rules. If you are trying to debate just for confortation then I will be the first to bow out.
Here we go!
One thing we can agree on - Flying too far out causes clubs to lose flying fields!
"Box" There is no absolute way to enforce it on all sides. Wheather it is back, side or front there is a place where it cannot be enforced.
You are correct the "old 75 Degree box" can be enforced on the sides but because IMAC does not care to the size or style of airplane, then people with bigger airplanes tend to fly further out to give themselves more time to fly. Now the back of the box (which was 1100' out) now becomes an issue. How can you enforce this? NO way possible right now.
With technology changing very rapidally it may be different in a few years BUT right now technology is not there yet. (Also remember that the rules have to apply to all parts of the US and we are now an international organization. These rules will be used Internationally.)
So what is the Answer? ACS. Flyers will not change unless it affects their score. See the rule book and the other postings as to the details of the ACS.
Is ACS the almighty answer to all questions? Heck No. Will the ACS be perfected in a couple of months and everyone be happy with it? Heck No. Right now, I see this as the "best we've got" and if instead of putting it down please look at this objectively and give it a try for a while and I feel that in a short period of time you will see that this is a good rule and if we as a group try to help keep a tight footprint then we will see some realization to this rule.
The statement about making 40%ers obsolete is the furtherst from the minds of the rulemakers. They do not want to exclude any aircraft. If Joe Blow want to fly his 95% scale aircraft then that is quite alright. If he wants to fly is .05% aircraft that to is ok. If he wants to fly anything in between then we welcome him and hope he will joins us and compete with us.
Hope this helps you understand the bases of the rule. One thing that I can truly say "In the 4 years that I was part of the rule making process, the statement that the rules where changed instead of enforcing them is just not true. This did not happen. The rules were changed by looking at all the situations and a rule was made to try to help promote IMAC at it's fullest" It was every board members intentions to make IMAC better.
Do we all agree? NO, but we can come together, try to understand the rule and enforce it so that it can potentially help IMAC and promote more and better IMAC events.
Stan