Hello Fellows

Here's the deal Iv been practicing anywhere from 2 to 4 hours a day for close to a year now weather permitting, and just in the past 3 months Iv bought a Eclipse pattern plane with a YS DZ 140, and to be perfectly honest with you about 6 months ago pattern flying just bored me to death and I had know desire to fly a pattern plane, well after going to several contest and talking to some of your best Giant Scale 3D pilots around, I realized that all your top notch 3D pilots that are flying today have a pattern background, and before I knew anything about this I could tell there was something about my flying that just wasn't smooth or should I say all my transaction from one maneuver to another was just not as smooth and clean as I would like them to be, in fact I would get so frustrating I would just land for the day and go home before I got to my extremely mad zone and do something stupid like I'm sure we've all done before and it only comes out of our pockets, But anyway I would just come back the next day a try again, But what my goals are is simply but not impossible and that is I want to compete in alot of your bigger Contest like the XFC and several other or your popular IMAC contest, but I'm not a fool I want do this until I'm ready and I think I should be ready to fully compete in 2006, I could do it now but I'm noy really in the mode to finish 3rd to the last, so I'm going to spend all this year going to most of the events and just learning the ropes because that's what I really need help with I really don't have all of the rules completely down, Wayne Geffon a buddy of mine and a great pilot told me about them a long time ago but that was before I even owned a giant scale airplane so alot of his information went out the window, So my question is this can you fellows tell me step by step how these contest works, how the points are done, and any other thing I would need to know, or better yet is there a website you can go to that tells you and shows you everything you need to know to about these contest... Thanks a lot guys I really do appreciate it...
Thanks a bunch
Randy

Don't go to watch. You'll learn far more from other pilots and judges if you compete. There's nothing wrong with finishing 3rd from last or even last. Practice and experience flying in contests is how you make it to the top. Jim

Yep, Jimmy is right on the money. Go fly and have fun, learn and have more fun. Meet some of the nicest folks in the hobby. Also, I'd highly advise you scribe for one of the judges. You can learn A LOT.

....Mark