ORIGINAL: shannah
ORIGINAL: TonyF
This is an interesting discussion, but I don't think anything will change as long as there is a "do what F3A does" mentality. There is of course a world wide market, but maybe the USA could take a stance that would be best for it's interests. I know of the huge relief that many intermediate and advanced pilots going to the Nats would have if the limit was 12 pounds! And BTW, the models should be weighed with batteries or full of fuel. Then a lot of battery life concerns could go away also.
I agree with you Tony. The weight limit really causes an exponential cost growth. I think there should be a cap, and going to 12 would really open up the market. I also like the idea that the weight should be RTF, meaning with fuel or with batts. Right now it penalizes e-fliers in my opinion. The only downside to this is whether or not the 12 lb limit would stunt the development because no one would need to do anything exotic to beat it.
Anyway, you're probably right, nothing will change so this is just an interesting discussion.
I disagree that nothing will change... change starts when people start talking about issues/concerns and pretty soon these start to bubble up all over the place. Once enough people talk about these areas of concern, ideas will start to float about how to fix things and then change starts to happen.
We are entering a rules change cycle and if someone has an interest in helping out on this then I'd welcome their input in putting together surveys that we can use to help get input from the membership. My thought is that we'd have multiple surveys on the NSRCA website that will focus in on specific areas where we'd like to improve our rules and/or sequences.