Would like to hear from pattern folks outside of the USA, pertaining to the format used at their local/area contest for FAI/F3A.

On a normal one or two day contest do you fly the P schedule for the entire contest or do you fly rounds of P and of F?
I am speaking of a normal contest and not a country championship or a team selection.

The past few years in the states it has become somewhat common to see FAI flying the P schedule on Saturdays and the F schedule on Sundays.

Thanks in advance

Dan

4x per year a one contest day; first 3 contests 3xP; final contest 2xF+2xUnknown for top-5 pilots; others fly 3xP.

If it would be a 2-day event I would not participate; takes too much time from the family.

Volkert

in Norway 4 time P in weekend contest and 4 times P and is it 4 time F in Nationals

Here in Australia, we only fly the P schedule.

Regards,
Jason.

In south America we have the Panamerican Championships, identical to the WC but only F in the finals, everything as per the Sporting Code.

Regards

Alejandro P.

Here in the Philippines, we only fly the P. Flying the F would result in even fewer people flying pattern.

I want to thank everyone that has responded to this post/question and would urge anyone else that wants to add to the thread to please do so.

Myself and a few others have wondered in the past how the two schedules were handled in other countries where FAI is the main controlling body. In the US we have the AMA schedules and then add on the F3A schedules to our contest.

jayjayneri, some of us agree with you on the usage of the F schedule at non WC/Team Selection contest would or has hurt the number of flyers in F3A. Lots has been said in the US about this but the trend seems to be to continue flying F on Sundays.

Keep the answers coming, it is very interesting to hear how the contest are conducted in other areas.

Thanks

Dan

In Germany we have DAeC and DMFV-schedules.

DAeC:
3x per year in a 2day-contest.
Each contest with 2x Prelim 1x Final and 1x Unknown in the following order: Prelim - Final - Prelim - Unknown

DMFV:
4x per year in 2 days-contest
Each contest (Expert-class) 2x Prelim and 1x Unknown in the following order: Prelim - Unknown - Prelim

Regards
Hans

In the England through 2011 we held 13 one day GBR/CAA (Domestic) competitions where the winner was decided by taking the best 2 of 3 'P' rounds.

However pilots may fly our Masters, Advanced, Intermediate and Clubman schedules at the same competitions to gain points in their own league. Best 2 flights of 3 to count


Regards

Ashley

Hi Ashley I had to wonder with all the one day contests how far would someone in GB have to travel. I looked up your sites and saw this.
http://www.gbrcaa.org/compsites.htm
So my question is how far does the average flier drive to a contest? Also how many participants would you have on average? TIA, Mike Mueller

Hi Mike

We get an average of 15 pilots at our dometic competitions. Our pliots briefing is usually 8:45 for first flight at 9am. The maximum number of entries we can cope with is 21 pilots flying 3 rounds, but some would fly Clubman and Intermediate which are shorter schdules than the 'P'. We would never have more than one flight line, (which we experienced when Matt and Richard flew at your Nats this year). You can see numbers for yourself here: http://www.gbrcaa.org/competitionresults.htm

Most pilots live within 120 miles of most competition venues although the odd pilot could travel 200 miles. I would guess the average might be 90 miles (180 miles return).

I hope this is helpful to you.

Kind regards

Ashley

Very interesting. Is 1 flight line at a time the norm in Europe? In the 70's I ran a 2 day contest in suburban Chicago where we had 72 fliers and 3 flight lines running at once on a 200 ft asphault runway. I think were kind of used to dodging planes. Thanks, Mike