ORIGINAL: Gremlin Castle
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Your club events add into all of the other clubs events happening at the same time around the country increasing the risk of a problem if a model is tested during an event. As for testing before or after an event even by one minute the number of people in the potential flight area are a lot fewer than during the event. They don't all suddenly appear and dissapear by the clock. They do however get quite involved in the middle hours of the event increasing the chance of a problem should something happen.
Also I do not recall the Aero events running 3 to 5 flightlines. Correct me if I am wrong.
No doubt there are more AMA events. But, I maintain that the average model that would be first flown at an event is far less likely to crash than the highly experimental load lifters at the Aero Design events. I am still of the opinion that there are safe ways to manange first flights at events and have mentioned ways in previous posts to do so.
There have been many dozens of Aero design events over the years, two per year for many years. Still quite a record of first flights in public.
Yes, the Aero Design events are single flight line. I don't think it matters, though.
I could see reserving the fist hour or last hour of an event for a first flight...like you said, the tempo is lower then. I have never seen a very large difference in population at events from the pilots meeting to the middle of the day, but things do thin out towards the end of the day. I do not think your generalization that there are a lot fewer people present at the beginning and ending of the event is always true. Probably less spectators early and late, though.
First flights are beig done once in a while at events, anyway...why not work to make the happen in the safest possible way?