OK pattern community, I’ve been letting these ideas ‘ferment’ for about 18 months. I guess it’s time to find out if I have wine or vinegar J.
First a little background information. The first pattern contest I attended was back in 1969. I was not flying R/C yet, just F/F and U/C, but my dad went with me and we both got hooked on the hobby. I started competing in 1972 and remained active in pattern until 1993 when I ‘temporarily’ ceased competitive flying which is still my current status. I’ve been a member of the NSRCA since 1980 and have competed in numerous local pattern contests as well as 2 nationals. Though not competing at present, I still fly about 300 practice flights (mostly FAI, but sometimes the Masters sequence) annually which, hopefully, keeps me relatively current. ‘Retiring’ from pattern was certainly influenced by parenting 3 small children, but another, significant factor was the decrease in enjoyment of attending contests. This was primarily attributable to the workload of contestant judging. I completely understand the necessity of contestant judging (without it there would be no local pattern events), however, I found that with lowered attendance the judging ‘opportunities’ seemed to increase and I was spending significantly more time judging than flying. Further, judging turnaround flights is quite mentally draining as there is no break between maneuvers; provide a score, but don’t take your eyes off the airplane. Completing a round or two of judging and I’m better prepared for a nap than to fly competitively.
The ten years prior to the introduction of aresti style pattern saw some impressive levels of participation. Attendance at local contests (for me, that was in District I) averaged 40-60 fliers. The annual NE regional contest saw pattern entries approach or exceed 100 pilots. One year (‘74 I think), there were 42 entrants in Novice. I remember the number well, as I was one of them (placed 6th with an Aeromaster and got to meet Lou Andrews). I do not believe we will ever see those numbers participating in local pattern contests again. I do think we can create a more pattern friendly atmosphere to encourage would-be pattern fliers. Please note: I do not think there is anything wrong with current AMA pattern. However, I think getting started in pattern is much more difficult today than 40 years ago. There are many more choices in equipment today, and the complexity level is far greater. 40 years ago, you were happy with a solid, reliable radio (if you were lucky you had a Pro-line with those terrific stick gimbals), now we have programming options which require an impressive manual to explain. Powerplant choices back then were limited to a few 2-stroke glo engine manufacturers, now we have glo (2 or 4 stroke), electric, or gas. There were a lot more kit choices back then, but no nifty ARFs to choose from and good building skills were highly prized. Most significantly, is the level of flying skill required to fly the current AMA entry level aerobatic schedule versus the Novice schedule from 40 years ago. Today, the Sportsman sequence must be flown inside the ‘box’ which is daunting even with the two box ‘breaks’ during the sequence. There were only 9 maneuvers in the original Novice pattern including: take-off, traffic pattern, landing, straight flight out, procedure turn, straight flight back. The remaining three aerobatic maneuvers were: stall turn, immelman turn, 3 inside loops. No box to worry about. The current Sportsman sequence is comprised of 17 maneuvers; 15 (excluding take-off and landing) broken into 3 ’groups’ of 5 contiguous maneuvers which includes 2 ’turnaround’ maneuvers per group. Some may argue that the straight flight out, straight flight back, vertical up line and 45 degree down line are quite elementary; all can be quite challenging for the novice pattern flier. There are also nearly twice as many maneuvers now and the presence of the ‘box’ and the comparative rapidity which maneuvers are flown creates a much more difficult environment than that of the Novice pattern from pre-aresti days.
There are a couple of other points I’d like to address before presenting my classic pattern concept. There has been a great deal of discussion about the SPA. When I first heard about the organization, almost 20 years ago, I was excited about the prospect of flying some old favorites (I still have a Cutlass and a Dirty Birdy kit), but kinda disappointed because I thought I’d have to wait until I turned 50 to compete in Senior Pattern Association events (why else would they call it ’Senior’??). The fact that the organization has survived/thrived for so long indicates that lots of fliers are quite happy competing under the constraints of their rules; so no need to change what already works. The BPA was ’created’ as sort of a knee-jerk response to the limitations of the SPA (I want my pipe and retracts), though the BPA has their own set of limitations, too, just a lot broader than the SPA’s. Ironically, the true BPA era really only lasted 7 years: 1977 (first appearance of tuned pipes at the FAI WC and only used by about 40% of the competitors) until the end of 1983 (last non-aresti WC). So this marks the 26th year of aresti-style aerobatics, at least at the FAI level (the AMA resistance to aresti faded during the late ’80s); it seems there should be a place for aresti pattern in the ‘Classic pattern’ venue as well.
This seemingly endless stream of verbiage simply serves to introduce and perhaps justify the pattern concept I’d like to propose.

A Modest Proposal … for Classic Pattern

Goals
1) Promote pattern in the R/C community, encouraging participation by both veteran ‘retired’ pattern pilots and fliers who have yet to experience the pleasure of competitive aerobatics as well as all other pattern aficionados.
2) Preserve outdated pattern aircraft designs and discontinued aerobatic schedules.
3) Prepare motivated pilots for the rigors of AMA/FAI pattern competition.
4) Enjoy pattern competition and camaraderie at a slightly less intense level than current AMA/FAI pattern contests. <The enjoyment factor is, in my opinion, the primary reason for success in the SPA.>

Requirements
Any aircraft that meets the following:
1) Maximum weight = 5Kg
2) Maximum size (length/span) = 2M
3) Maximum allowable noise = 96Db

Competitive Categories
1) Pre-Aresti pattern. This is broken down into 3 levels of increasing difficulty as follows (take-off and landing are excluded as judged maneuvers for all classes):
Class A - 10 aerobatic maneuvers selected from the appended list with a total ‘K’ value of 20
Class B - 10 aerobatic maneuvers selected from the appended list with a total ‘K’ value of 28
Class C - 10 aerobatic maneuvers selected from the appended list with a total ‘K’ value of 36
The list of maneuvers will comprise all those defined in the AMA rule book up to 1983. << I am considering including many/most maneuvers which have been subsequently defined in the Aresti schedules, however this violates goal #2 above and the Aresti maneuvers are available in competitive category #2>>
Rather than restricting entry based on date of design, power plant, etc.
I have decided that awarding bonus points in the following manner is more accommodating.
1 point per flight for class A, 2 points per flight for class B, 3 points per flight for class C awarded for 10cc sized designs (this allows/encourages competition with post 1983 designs like the Aurora, Joker, Eclipse, Cursor, Escape, Great Escape, Mistress, Conquest variants, Runaround… you get the point).
1 point per flight for class A, 2 points per flight for class B, 3 points per flight for class C awarded for use of a piped 10cc engine (this encourages the use of ‘traditional’ 2-stroke power plants, but does not really discourage the use of 4-stroke engines or electric motors).
1 point per flight for class A, 2 points per flight for class B, 3 points per flight for class C awarded for the use of retractable landing gear.
2 points per flight for class A, 3 points per flight for class B, 4 points per flight for class C awarded for the use of 7.5 cc engines or smaller (this prevents getting an advantage flying an older 60 sized design with a .55 sized engine, but encourages the use of ’40’ sized airplanes or smaller for competition)

The traditional approach of one sequence flown per flight can be utilized, but I’d like to encourage a slightly different approach (plagiarized from IMAC). Each sequence is flown twice per flight with the score of the best sequence being counted. Typically, 6 flights are flown in a contest. The original format has the best 4 of 6 sequences counting, here 6 of 12 sequences flown are counted (though not necessarily the best 6 - you could have 2 really good sequences in one flight or 2 really bad sequences and only keep one of them). I actually think counting 5 of 12 is probably optimal as it allows for 1 ‘bad’ flight due to poor engine setting, mechanical failure, etc.

Lastly, if the Hangar 9 Phoenix 7 is very successful, there may need to be a
Dedicated P-7 class.

2) Aresti pattern. This merits preservation as much as ’ballistic’ pattern as it has changed significantly since inception. At present, I want to avoid sequences that include maneuvers which require enormous amounts of fuselage side area (such as loops incorporating rolls in any fashion) to perform successfully and focus on schedules from the first 10-15 years of turnaround (up to 1999). Since the AMA provides several different levels of difficulty of turnaround pattern (4 plus FAI), I’m not convinced that Classic pattern needs more than 1 Turnaround class at present. Further, the earlier schedules are comparatively easier than the present schedules (I think the first FAI Aresti schedule would probably be equivalent in difficulty to the current Advanced schedule) which means more pilots would be able to fly them. As an aside, the local contests I attended in the Northeast for the first year or two after the introduction of ’turnaround’ (’84, ’85) allowed AMA contestants to also compete in FAI pattern. <<This helped encourage interest and also provided some fairly terrifying moments on the flight line for pilots, judges and spectators>> Again, I have a slightly different approach for this event. I’d like two schedules of differing degree of difficulty selected for each year (OK, that could open a can of worms; so I‘ll be more specific); one from Masters/FAI and one from Intermediate/ Advanced schedules (from 1984 to 1999). Six rounds would be flown at each contest, but prior to each round one competitor (competing in the Aresti category) would ’draw from a hat’ (randomly select) the sequence to be flown for that round.
I would also like to suggest a different approach to judging: separate judges for centered versus turnaround (end of box) maneuvers. I firmly believe that this approach would make judging aresti sequences significantly easier. If the two sequences per flight approach is used then the judges can swap responsibilities between flights so that each judge evaluates all the maneuvers once per flight.

Again, bonus points are available:
20cc down to, but not including 10cc sized airplanes are awarded 1 bonus point per flight
10cc or smaller sized airplanes are awarded 2 bonus points per flight

3) TOC pattern
This is really a semi-scale version of Aresti pattern, but there seems to interest in preserving this part of pattern history (thanks to the efforts of Rusty Dose!!)
Since the size requirements remain the same (otherwise this becomes an IMAC contest) there is a somewhat logical category break based on the date of design of the full scale airplane modeled. I have not researched (yet) the dates of appearance of many of the new full scale aerobatic airplanes, but for the sake of argument (and this is the date that Rusty used) there can be two TOC categories:
1978 or earlier airplanes: Dalotel, Zlin, Bucker, Stampe, Pitts Special, Cap 21 (?), Laser (I think), Skybolt, Chipmunk, Spinks, etc. A list of approved designs would be included (like the SPA)
Modern Aerobatic designs: Sukhoi, Extra (lots of versions), Ultimate Bipe, and many others.
I am completely in favor of the first category (and the aerobatic schedules from that era), but have some reservations about the second ’unlimited’ category as that is really what IMAC is about, plus there are not many kits, plans, ARFs available that meet the size criteria. Of course, allowing all aerobatic designs may better serve the ‘promotion’ and ‘enjoyment goals and bonus points can be awarded to the older designs in a similar manner as described above.
As an aside, of historical interest, Dave Brown was quoted at the 1988 TOC ’… wishes TOC used scale FAI legal planes so it would be easier for FAI competitors to stay competitive in FAI.’

Finally, none of this is ’cast in concrete’, but is certainly an opportunity for discussion.

Flywilly,
Very, very interesting idea/concept. I'm back into itafter a long lay-off too. My other half says I'm obsessed (so be it). I like competition, but didn't like where pattern was heading. I hope that those much better informed than I willtake yourwords and consider them with much seriousness. I try to avoid the politics of our past-times (hobbies or otherwise), but I also wonder if we'll lose the type of flyingthat was a major part of my teensthrough mid twenties and seemingly appeals to many, many modelers. I know that when my youngest is out of college, I will likely go bananas with this past-time again(read spend my money). Nuff said...except that I recall Novice also had the one outside loop and the inverted flight (or old two-point roll).
Mark
AMA 63845
SPA 384
EAA (N641RM)
AOPA
NAFI
ERAU Alumni

Will,

Any chance of some paragraphs?

David.

Hi David,
I just copied the text from a Microsoft works word document where it was much better formatted. I just copied and posted and didn't go back to read/edit it. The proposal portion copied much more 'readably'.
-Will

Hey you areomaster fans , I have what I believe to be an areomaster #1 .This plane has a foam core wing and a 2 point top wing. Ineed a lower wing .HELP   !    C.J.

Check out the Aeromaster thread in the vintage forum for help.

FB

Flywilly, you left out the horizontal figure 8 flown after the straight flight back from the old Class A pattern event from 1972.

Fly...

I flew "novice" AMA Pattern in 1974-76 and recall that the pattern included three horizontal rolls.

ChiefK

The 1976/77 Novice Pattern:

1. Takeoff
2. Straight Flight Out
3. Procedure Turn
4. Straight Flight Back
5. Stall Turn
6. Immelman Turn
7. Three Inside Loops
8. Straight Inverted Flight (Two Point Roll)
9. One Reverse Outside Loop
10. Three Horizontal Rolls
11. Rectangular Approach
12. Landing

I think it would be more true to classic pattern if you changed your section to read as following:

Any aircraft and engine that meets the following:
1) Maximum weight = AMA weight limits
2) Maximum size (length/span) = no limits
3) Maximum allowable noise = no limits, muffler or pipe required
4) Engine type and size = Two stroke up to 10CC with or without tuned pipe

Here is the 76 / 77 rule book right from AMA

http://www.classicpatternassociation.../1976-1977.pdf

Here's the Class A pattern from 1973

1. Takeoff
2. Straight filght out
3. Procedure turn
4. Straight flight back
5. Figure 8
6. Three rolls (Axial or barrel)
7. Immelman turn
8. Cuban 8
9. Stall Turn
10. Traffic Pattern Approach
11. Landing perfection
12. Spot landing

At my first pattern contest in 1972 on the first flight I crashed my plane on the traffic pattern aproach because I had not practiced right hand turns. I got disoriented and flew it into the trees. Spent the rest of the day looking for it.

Attached is a file of all three classes. I don't remember that we flew Class D (FAI) at local contest back then.

Exactly as I recall it KLX,per an old "call sheet" I still have.

hook