Don't forget - the controls still work when you're going backwards.

The controls do work sliding backwards. For the longest time when IAC and CIVA pilots and judges talked about a wheels down or wheels up tail slide they described it from a pilots point of view. What this means is that the slide was ether "STICK FORWARD" or "STICK BACK TAILSLIDE" if the slide required the wheels up during the flop, you put the sick full forward during the slide. If the slide was to be a wheels down during the flop, you pulled the stick all the way back at the moment of slide. Back in 2000 the IAC and CIVA wanted the judges to refer to all figures in terms of what can be observed from the ground
and not to what the pilot has to do to perform the figure. This was to eliminate possible bias based on saying something like, "I know what he did, and that's the wrong input" it's the judges job to score based on what is observed, not to second guess the pilot.

As for how this correlates to models, I would suggest as many unlimited pilots do, (especially those with full-scale experience) set a very high elevator and rudder rate on one of the spring return type buttons on your TX, so during the slide you have more control of the direction of the flop.

Tom Wheeler
IMAC President

You hit the nail on the head Tom ...FLOP... that is what you will be seeing a lot of in this maneuver. It is also a moot point to mention that the Wind plays a more than significant factor in the Slide. Double the wind Factor for the Scale of the Plane. IE 15 mph to Full Scale which translates to about 25-30mph for models, and if there is a cross Wind of 15+, I will guarantee that no pilot will meet the criteria for a score on this maneuver. Everything does work going backwards, but what is missing from all of you explanations is the fact that the Mass of the back of the model being moved is roughly 1/15 that of the Full Scale Counterpart. All you are moving is very very light Balsa or Carbon Fiber, not heavy wood wrapped in many Layers of Carbon Fiber on full scale Airplanes. The lightest Full Scale Ulimited Aerobatic Airplane still weighs 1000 lbs., opposed to our 40. Sheer Fact of the matter is that Full Scale dislike the Slide as much as Modelers. There is always a moment of No Control. No Matter how you justify your explanation, sitting in the aircraft and cheating the slide with a three dimensional view of your aircraft in space is much different than having the two dimensional view from the ground. Center Box is hard enough to Cheat the Slide; End Box makes it that much harder. It doesn't really sound like, from the aspect of Unlimited Pilots replying to this post, that any of them want to see the Slide in the Sequence.
Mark Leseberg Jr.

Mark,
To slide or not to slide was by far the single biggest issue we had to deal with in designing the Unlimited sequence for next year. The board informally polled some Unlimited pilots, your responses to this forum was included, and our top nationally recognized judges. The split was about 50/50, so no matter our decision, 1/2 would not be happy with us. Definitely a bum deal for us, but that's why we get paid the big bucks . The board ended up taking a vote, and the results were, 5 in favor and 3 against the slide. We changed the last few figures a little, so now the Tail Slide is the last figure, its downwind and plane Jane, nothing up, nothing down.
The final OFFICIAL IMAC 2004 SEQUENCES will be posted on the IMAC web site tonight. You will see some changes that were made do to a great deal of feedback from our membership, thank you everyone.
Tom Wheeler
IMAC President

Tom,

First off, thanks for your hard work on our behalf.

While it's too late to make any changes, for what it's worth, I too fly Unlimited and I can only think of one Unlimited competitor that I have spoken with over the last few seasons who believes the tailslide should be an IMAC manuever for all of the reasons Mark has stated here- including TOC and Masters competitors.

I've been wrong before, however, based on discussions I have had it's hard for me to imagine that a vote from a group of just Unlimited pilots - the group that is affected by the decision - would have produced a similar outcome.

I'll grin and bear it this year- but will continue to say that the tailslide does not have a place in IMAC- too much is out of the hands of the competitor and, what's more, when you flop a tailslide- it's a zero and has the most severe impact on your score.

Dave Michael

Tom,
Thank You for your time in replying back. I'm sorry to be a little antsie about this subject, but I know that I speak for the great majority about the slide. Not a lot of people have the ability to respond to this forum. I will grant that the Slide will Stay for this year. However, I would respectfully request that the Slide be completely omitted and banned from all Future Known Sequences. Perhaps a Rule Change for 2005. Just out of curiosity, who voted on the Sequences and who voted for or against the Slide? Is there another site where we can view votes and or put imput into future sequences. Thank You for bringing up my post to the board members and for listening to all the pilots suggestions in this thread.
Mark Leseberg Jr.

Advanced Maneuver #10 description problem. I sent the follwing to Marc Jorgensen (IMAC webmaster and received the response).

Hi Bill,
It looks like the text was worded incorrectly. I will send your email to the BOD so that they can correct it.
Thanks,
Mark

My Question:
Mark,

In the Advanced sequence the last maneuver is called incorrectly from the way it is drawn. 45 up-line with 1/2 roll and opposite 1-1/2 negative snaps would bring you back to upright on the 45 upline. The 5/8 outside loop would exit you inverted so the 8 point roll would be from inverted to inverted.

Please advise.
Thanks,
Bill

Thanks Bill, got it fixed and sent back to Mark.
Tom Wheeler
IMAC President

Mark,
This years sequences were designed by the board based on the CIVA and IAC sequences. They were changed and modified based on the feedback from the membership. The final sequence decisions where made by Officer vote, Officer voting on the tail slide was 5 to 3 in favor. Of the three current IMAC board members who fly Unlimited, two voted for the slide. Believe it or not, there were many Unlimited pilots who wanted the slide in the Known sequence. At least in the Knowns you practice the figure and if you do blow it there is the chance that sequence will be dropped. Where as in a Unknown, it's going to count no matter what happens, plus the figure was not practiced.
We shortly discussed eliminating the Tail Slide all together from IMAC, but we didn't want repeat the mistake of playing with the FAI catalog like we did a few years ago where we doubled the K on rollers and 1.5 times them for the Tail Slide.

Tom Wheeler
IMAC President

Fair enough- thanks for the detail. I am surprised to hear the slide was received positively by so many.

Should be fun- I like the rest of the sequence and especially enjoy seeing a one roll roller - first one I can remember seeing since I have been in IMAC.

Dave Michael

Well Tom, the good news about the tailslide in 2004 is that the ' 10 degrees cheating' will still be 'legal', right?
The rule change to eliminate it will only be effective in 2005 and after if I remember right.

Christophe told me in '98 that he'd much rather take a large downgrade by visibly tilting the plane in the right direction before the stall to force the flop direction when it goes down, since the flop will be the key judging criteria for most judges to give a zero. The 'visible slide backward' is extremely difficult to judge and you need big balls as a judge to give a zero on that criteria alone.

My approach when I wrote the 10 degrees cheating in the F&JG was to avoid penalizing the competitor who modifies the plane attitude to control the flop direction, and somewhat remove the 'chance' factor out of it as much as possible. Sounds like I was wrong since it will be removed .

BTW, how are you doing?

Ben P.

As a former FULL SCALE ADVANCED competition pilot and continuing R/C pilot, I have to tell you, us full scale guys hated rolling circles when they were first introduced too. We cheat(ed) a lot of figures in full scale and we made them work. The Tail Slide is no different. It's a figure in the FAI Catalog and likely to be placed in the figure pool for both knowns and unknowns. I have not competed in IAC or IMAC for a number of years, but can still fly the figure very well in both - wheels up / wheels down, doesn't make a difference. This is by no means a FLOP figure and the airplane never departs controlled flight. While I understand Mark's disdain for the figure, I appreciate Tom's statement about maintaining the FAI catalog. Choosing to drop a figure because certain people may have a difficult time flying it goes against the reason we fly. If we all flew perfect figures and were only concerned about the order they appeared in a sequence, in my humble opinion - flying would be boring. We would only fly aerobatics because "they are cool" and not because we want to achieve and demonstrate a proficiency in flight. If you don't like tail slides - practice what you hate!

Looking at previous IMAC Unlimited sequences, maybe Family 6 could take a break, but don't disown him. He's a little Family and only twice as big as 5 - nobody hates 5 - Stall Turns - and he could just as easily be flown out of the box. Half in - downgrade, out - the same ZERO you would get on a "FLOP". Besides, full scale Unlimited pilots zero figures too. I saw five pilots zero a loop/point combination in the WAC this year. Several more rolled the wrong way on the up-line of a cross-box Humpty and either flew WAY out of the box (the smart move for a downgrade) or tried to correct the error and - you guessed it - zeroed the figure. One pilot actually tried to "get creative" and zeroed the flight. In full scale, we would take the optional BREAK, pull our heads out of our %$$, and complete the sequence.

The biggest difference between IAC and IMAC is wind corrected figures, but as see it, the goal of IMAC is to emulate full scale aerobatics. It's the difference of where the nose is pointed as opposed to the path of flight. If you can't fly a clean tail slide - practice, cheat it and take the downgrade or fly for fun.

Just my humble opinion.

Hi Ben,
Good to hear from you.
The "cheat" on the slide is still in effect till 2005. We had discussed a great length the pros and cons of keeping the 10 degree cheat or not. It basically came down to the fact that since we are going back to a true FAI K factor for the slide and rollers, the hit a pilot would get (if observed) for cheating the slide will not be too damaging. The legal "cheat" was also one of those issues like "what color is better, red or blue" no matter what you decide your going to piss off a group of people.
I personally think that the key to performing good repeatable slides is what Kule said; "practice what you hate".

Ben, it's been a long time, send me your number so we can talk. [email protected]

Tom Wheeler
IMAC President

Kule,
My entire reason for replying to this post is the sheer fact that we are trying to IMULATE Full Scale Aerobatics. I too have quite a bit of full scale experience and can tell you that if we all tried to imulate the full scale exactly, there would be a lot of catching up to do.
Prime Example:
The Snap Roll - This maneuver is impossible to accomplish with rudder and elevator alone in models. If we were subject to the same criteria that a Sukhoi performs a snap, all modelers would receive a score of 0. Myself Included. The Full Scale Sukhoi does the best text book Snap Rolls. The nose pitches VIOLENTLY up or down and commences autorotation not by Aileron, but by Rudder. Aileron may be used to speed up the Snap and or stop the Snap Crisply. Modelers cheat with the use of aileron to aid in autorotation.

The entire just of my continuance in this matter is the point of fact.
I have lost, and seen too many contests lost because of the tailslide. The FLOP is the most dreaded maneuver that I can possibly fathom. You have worked your entire life, weather it be for a week or 15 years to get to this point in competition all to see it windle away in a FLOP.
The differences in a Known and Unknown program are very sound.
Talk to Chip, QuiQue, or Christophe. Each one is not worried about the other in the Classic Section of the Unknown. What is the one question that they will always ask after an Unknown Program.
Did he/she get the Slide?
Why?
Because, in models, there is a huge disadvantage. There is a point of NO CONTROL. Cheat all you like, but then you run the greater risk of the FLOP. THERE IS A PIONT OF NO CONTROL if you do the Slide Textbook, and move the Control Surfaces coming backwards PERIOD. I DO NOT LIKE NO CONTROL, hence my argument for Classic Figures in the Known.
I am not saying completely omit the figure, but rather omit the figure from the known program.
The Sequences are final, so there is nothing that I can do except practice 10,000 Slides before next year, shut up, and fly.

On a lighter note:
I have found some sponsorship and been given the gracious opportunity to fly a Full Scale Extra 300L next year. I have been doing some flying, and plan to go for the U.S. World Team in 2005.
My goals next year far superseed this year and I can't wait to get started. Models and Full Scale have been a life-long dream of mine. To make the US Team would be amazing!

Tom,
Good to see that you're still passionate about this and don't give up. You skin is defintively thicker than mine!
I'll send you a personal mail or give you a call one of those days.

Mark,
Good to hear about your sponsorship, good luck with your full scale endeavor!
If you apply the same enthousiasm there as you did for Scale Aerobatics (and I'm sure you will), you'll make great things as well.
Hope to see you around down here in Florida soon again, my little Flip 3D has been missing you... ;&gt.

Ben

Mark,

Your statements are very well put. Your concern of tail slide placement in the unknown as opposed to the known is also well founded. I have not competed in a model event for a number of years, but am planning a return next year with a stable of an old tried and true warhorses - the Laser 200. I have one 33% Laser completed with only a few flights on it before the weather turned, and my second one will be on the bench soon for this winters building project. I hope to put at least 100 more flights on my primary plane and some extensive trim sessions on the backup before I again try my hand with all the young guns out there. And yes, I am one of those - getting to be rare - pilots who builds my own airplanes.

I spent some time with Quique down at this years WAC in Lakeland and the first comment he made was concerning nose movement on the snaps of the full scale planes. I wish modelers could perform the snap without having to move the right stick to the corners of the box, but alas, the airplane would never get around without the aileron input. It comes down to mass and inertia. With our light wing loading and thrust to weight ratio, we are always going to have differences between full scale and models. The good news is that modelers can do things with airplanes that full scale pilots only dream and are amazed at. I know that Goody and Hub marveled at the demo flights on Sunday - the day Quique almost said hello to the fence, the tree, and some said the crowd (though he wasn't that close). I think you may have already been on the road for the NATS.

My statements concerning the FAI catalog were directed specifically at some of the other posts that were recommending the removal of the figure. In my opinion, this would be a serious mistake. I may have been mistaken, but this is what I felt I was reading and saw these types of discussions take place in IAC between Intermediate and Advanced pilots and I went into a panic. I did, however, review past known/unknown Unlimited sequences and feel that there are other Family's that can be pulled from and, depending on placement, utilized in the sequence. Standing outside the airplane, modelers are not as aware or concerned about entry/exit speeds when stringing figures together. But, being a full scale pilot yourself, you know that airspeed and more importantly energy management are just as important as keeping the wings level - a feat that is harder when viewed from anywhere other than the cockpit.

Good luck in full scale. I traveled in that circle for a number of years and would not have traded it for the world. I made some life long friends as well as some bitter rivals, but we always had a great time together. I still go to some regional, and occasionally national, events and hope to see you excel. Most of the Unlimited pilots are extremely friendly but not as "salt of the earth" as modelers tend to be. Then again, I probably had my moments when I was competing and had my game face on. It must be in the breed because my father was a jet jock and we walk, talk and think a lot a like.

Regards,

Mark - A.K.A.

Sporstman sequence figure 10.

Hello,
Like you know, a regular split Ess has 1/2 roll with 1/2 inside loop. With 2004 sporstman sequence fig 10, should we do 2 of 4 point roll before the 1/2 inside lopp?

Scou.

That is correct, a 2 of 4 then the 1/2 loop.
What region do you fly?

Hello Geistware
I fly in Quebec Canada IMAC and i begun last year in Basic and i got the first position at my first contest with super sporster...
I am building a 24% CA Extra 300 for next spring.

We have some contests in Ste-Julie, Quebec, Rimouski...
Daniel

I would echo Mark's comments about the tailslide. There is a great deal of luck involved with this maneuver. Moreso if the wind is blowing. I would also like to see them removed from IMAC competition as it truly does take away from the skill aspects. There is also a great deal of arbitrary application of the 'visible slide' judging criteria.

A couple comments though. The tailslide has been removed from the known in IAC and CIVA contests due to the Q not being a scored flight for contest results. The Q only serves to validate competency in the class being flown. They still show up in unknowns, and are a requirement in the free program. Regardless, they are still a much hated maneuver in full scale competition as a result of the luck factor. Matt Chapman lost the free program at the WAC in Oklahoma after his airplane slid backwards some 150' or more only to flop the wrong way.

As far as how we fly or what control inputs are required.. it's irrelevant. I don't care if you need full down, full right aileron, and wag the rudder like a fish to make your airplane snap roll.. If it looks like a good snap.. it gets scored like a good snap. If your airplane shows all the criteria for a snap roll.. then you get scored as such.

Given that the aircraft performing a perfect tailslide would have a pure vertical entry, slide backward perceptibly, and flop in the correct direction I would assert the following: Unlike any other maneuver in the aresti it seems that the closer you are to scoring a 10 in the tailslide the closer you are to getting a zero. Obviously it makes the maneuver very unforgiving and will bring more CHANCE into the mix of a closely contested event.