That's true Arch,...I was always told many years ago to hold your line. The chances of hitting are slim,...not impossible as we all know. Until the advent of the 2.4GHZ technology there was a better chance of getting shot down (in general) than being involved in a mid-air.




Regards,

Bill Holsten

There's nothing you can do about this. It happens. Believe me. I've had 7 mid air "events". 5 involving other aircraft and 2 with birds. Two of my midairs were at contests. The only thing that you can do is to fly alone and have one flight line at the contests. That's impractical, but I do try to fly alone as much as possible.

When you fly pattern or Imac you are sticking your airplane in a defined space and tend to occupy similar lines as others flying similar styles. All of my midairs were such that even a spotter wouldn't have helped. So, you just need to go out there and fly. It's part of the sport, albeit it brings tears to your eyes when your trimmed out airframe is reduced to confetti by a trainer held together with duct tape and monokote trim sheet.

Very true,............




Bill Holsten

just an FYI... IMAC does allow avoidances with no penalty assessed....

has Pattern ever cosidered this?

No, we're REAL MEN and we stand in there and take it.

Honestly though as a judge I wouldn't down grade a guy for doing that if he informed the judges before doing so. It's not in the rule book.

That's also true,...................... I think the avoidance rule for IMAC is a fairly newer rule but I haven't flown any IMAC type flying since 2003? I know alot in IMAC has changed since then,...I am planning on flying both next year.





Bill Holsten

See ... something good is coming out of this thread ...

I'm planning on trying Pattern next year (been flying IMAC for a few years now)
Haven't read the rules yet (I will)

but I had heard people mention the fact that there are no avoidances allowed...... seems harsh..

Thanks for the input

Hi

A question from the UK.

May I ask how many pilots enter the events where you have two flight lines (which may overlap) and how many rounds pilots expect to fly each day.

Regards

Ashley

Typical contest these days is about 20 pilots. A 2 day contest usually will have 6 flights per pilot or 120 total flights need to be flown over the 2 days. If each flight takes about 10 min, then we need a total of 1200 minutes of total flight time which would take (20 hours) if we flew 1 at a time. I would bet most people would not like to reduce the number of flights in order to fly 1 at a time.

So its 3 flights per pilot per day ...

We like to do 4 the first day and 2 the 2nd day so that we get finished early in the afternoon and those that traveled a long ways to the contest can get on the road.

Thank you for the information.

Regards

Ashley

I asked someone from the APA to say what they did re mid airs. When I was there in 2000 I am sure that Aus$1 from every entry went to a "mid air" fund which built up over many contests. If a mid air occurred then the fund would be used to partially cover the cost of the damage for the participants. I do not know how it worked exactly but it was a kind of self insurance scheme.

Brandon

Well that is so Kewl,......very interesting idea! Are they still doing the self insurance scheme?



Regards,
Bill Holsten

I was curious about the comment made about the APA (Australian Pattern Association) and how they address mid-air's so I emailed Henry Hutchinson the current APA Contest Director. Here is his reply.

"Hi Glen to answer you ,we do not have any rule regarding mid air`s but we do have a fund to compensate the flyers in the event of a mid air.
Because we fly nearly all comps using two intermingleing lines, it is amazing we have very few mid air`s,we charge all competitors five dollars per event to build up a fund account,if there is a claim the commitee (APA) decide the amount per pilot,this of course does not completely replace the model, but it helps the hurt.
I hope this helps you ,Henry Hutchinson."

Interesting recourse for mid-air's, wondering if this could be applied here in the US and managed by the NSRCA Nationally or by District?

Well thank's Glen!
That is a very interesting implementation of landing fee's with a partial insurance policy to boot,.... indeed!



Best Regards,

Bill Holsten

FWIW:

I 'm planning on attending my second pattern contest in a week.

I have had some previous (either on RCU or the pattern list) discussion about avoidance being allowed in IMAC but not in pattern and have been told that the concern is that flyers could call an avoidance when they don't need it if they felt they needed a break or to get back on line. I will tell you that I have been to many IMAC contests (10+ years worth) and have never run into this concern.

I can honestly tell you that pattern not allowing avoidance is a discouragement to me to fly pattern and I'd really like to see it be allowed.

Dave Michael

Dave,

That has never stopped me from making a line correction. I would rather take the possibility of one zero, rather than take the rest of the round and th rest of the contest possibly of zeros, and lose all of the hard work that it took to get the airplane to where it was flying well. I can tell you in three years of pattern, that is the first midair that I've seen. It's really rare, and I wouldn't let that scare you off. I look forward to meeting you in a week!

Me too Ryan- see you there.

I have to agree with Ryan,..................

In my own oppinion,...Many pilots develope the ability to see whats going on around them,..I do. I fly as if I'm looking ahead, below, above and behind the box all the time,.seeing whats going on around me all the time. That is something full scale military flying teaches you,...always scan the sky! I know not everyone can accomplish this ,...but it dosen't take but a glance to see where the other guy is. I have many times over the year avoided an incident by slipping out or in,..up or down a hair to give a sweeter spot to fly, if I have someone that perfers the same "box" elements as I do,..make adjustments. Wheather it was IMAC, IMAA, Fun Flys or recently pattern,.etc. The odd's of colliding are very rare, but on occassion it does happen. I too would rather bail out as Mike indicated earlier than take the risk of loosing a plane or having one damaged so bad,.. it becomes a risk to the other pilots on the ground.

Ultimately,..there still is no really fool proof way of avoiding a mid-air,.....you TIC,..you YAC,....the majority of the times your lucky if it comes to that. I hold my line,..if it comes to a major correction,..so be it, get past it or take the down grade. And with pattern or anything else,..you can tell if the other guy likes the same line and altitude as you,..move in or move out,...move up or move down,..it just takes a few glances and stay there. Yeah,...you may give something up that round,....atleast you go on to finish the contest.

What will happen,..will happen and one one can predict it!

Happy flying,

Bill Holsten

Spelling correction; What will happen,..will happen and know one can predict it!

Ooops,..new laptop,..still getting use to it,...LOL!






Bill

Hi Brandon,

Mid-air was at the same field where you and Kevin practiced a few years ago.

Nice job on your 2nd place finish at the NATS!

Tom Miller

Hi Glen,

Yes it costs $5 for mid air fund but you don't have to go in it. I always do though just in case and it's cheap anyway. It turns a $15 entry fee into $20 which is cheap anyway... In the last 12 months I've only had to pay it twice as only two events have had two flight lines.

We have started to run a few one day events here in NSW. Victoria have been doing it for a while. Some people can't fly a two dayer so the one day event works well for them. The last one dayer we had 23 entries which is very good. Every pilot got in four flights. It was hectic but lots of fun.

Cheers
Jason.

Hi Dave:
For perspective, I've been to about 40 local pattern contests over 5 seasons, as well as 4 Pattern NATS. There have been three midairs that I know about in those local contests, one that caused minor damage to both models, one with a total loss of both, and one with a loss of one and major damage to the other. At the '04 NATS, there were 2 mid-airs I can remember from the FAI line. There may have been others over '05 through '07, but I don't recall any. There were none in '08. Particularly with the NATS, where two of the three flying sites at Muncie have the same class going simultaneously on both flight lines, and with a higher percentage of pilots of pilots who hold a consistent line than at local contests, there is a low number of midairs overall. This years there were 128 pilots competing at the NATS; typical numbers are 110-120 each year.

Since there's virtually no cross box stuff in Pattern, except the occasional Humpty with options, you can pretty much pick a line and stay in or out from where the other guy is most of the time. Not a perfect solution, but it helps some.