It would seem so.

Brenner - shallower discharges will certainly improve the number of cycles for any of the lipos I've seen to date. I'm not sure of your setup, but you might be able to gain some efficiency (less mah for equivalent flights) by experimenting with different ESC settings and props which would best suit your plane and flying style.

1B, Burt, Bren - this discussion was initiated regarding AMA rules proposals that would only affect AMA. And F3A predictably entered the discussion as AMA rules have often followed F3A, and the biased interpretation (weighing electrics with batteries, and IC without fuel) of F3A also followed to AMA. While most agree fixing the bias would be nice, doing so would likely accelerate the anticipated demise of IC (not really fair to the current IC guys), or allow escalation of electrics (increased cost, also not good). It is most certainly not wholly partisan with glow guys defending the advantage glow has now, or the electric guys trying to gain an advantage (or greater advantage). I personally think it is mostly moot, as future improvements in IC will be very minor compared to improvements in electric, which will see electric dominant under the current rules in the near future.

Length of the schedules is a different discussion, and it has several facets. Having flown Masters for many years, I like the length of the schedule, and the length is needed to challenge the top level pilots. I have no problem with Masters flying longer than Advanced, and Advanced flying longer than Intermediate, etc. The progression of classes should reflect both increasingly difficult maneuvers and longer flight times - this type of progression is similar to other forms of competition. F3A went to shorter sequences purely for logistical reasons - to reduce the time needed to complete a World Championship. Given the current distribution of pilots in the AMA classes, Masters has become a bit of a logistical challenge at many local contests because of the relatively high number of Masters pilots, and the corresponding time it takes to complete a round of Masters. Alleviating this could possibly be accomplished in several ways -
- Shorter Masters sequence (which could be "beefed" up with higher average K maneuvers to retain difficulty comparable to the current length).
- Make Masters harder, which would likely push some Masters to F3A, and some to Advanced.
- Add an Expert class (between Masters and Advanced), anticipating some Masters flyers would move back to Expert (I'd favor this least, as the average number at many local contests really doesn't support an additional class).

Regards,

Dave