Tim,

I beg to differ. Everytime they change something that is supposed to lower the cost it never does. Planes will just start getting bigger. You'd start seeing MUCH larger bipes that still fit the 2 meter limit, but doing away with the weight limit would give them some room to really play with these. Even allowing the gas stuff in, how much cheaper is it really. You'd start seeing guys running DA-50's and such, which other than the cost per flight aren't that much cheaper. I really don't think getting rid of the weight limit will do what people hope it would. Pattern is always going to be expensive. It's probably a lot more expensive than it has to be as it is. There are cheaper options, running an OS 1.60 instead of the YS or electric setups. Building your own planes from kits, and we certainly don't "need" the radio's we fly. I personally fly a 14MZ and wouldn't trade it for anything. You fly a 12X and certainly don't "need" that for pattern. But we do it anyway. The Phoenix contest in '07 was a perfect example. I showed up on Tuesday with no plane. Rusty Dose offered me his Focus II that had never flown before he arrived in Phoenix. I flew the Focus the first 4 rounds of the contest and flew his brand new Zeque for the last 2 rounds, after a battery failure cost us the Focus. Two planes on opposite ends of the spectrum, and I won 2 rounds of the contest with each. The Zeque definitely flew a little better, but it is a much newer design and I would expect it to. Both planes however were definitely competitive, and that was a Masters contest with multiple guys who had made the finals the previous year at the NATS. FAI is a different story. You need the best of the best in FAI and that is what drives the pattern community, but for the lower classes, we certainly spend more money than we really have to. Pattern guys like to stay on the front end of the curve for "toys"...I don't see that changing anytime soon. There are MUCH cheaper options available, if we choose to use them. You can totally outfit a Focus II, or some other ARF out there for a fraction of the cost of other options. Oxai's stuff is expensive, but it is excellent quality and they have a waiting list on their planes. I don't think lowering the cost of pattern is going to make numbers grow. IMAC's growth exploded a few years ago, and they were even more expensive than pattern.

Arch