Didn't Don Sczur win the F3A Nats with a Focus? And I doubt that the BM was designed just for AMA.

Tony,

There are guys right now in AMA running electrics on the ragged edge to gain a competitive advantage. Costly for some, yes, but they are buying and advantage. These same guys would absolutely jump at an opportunity to use bigger batteries and motors and make more power if the weight limit was raised.

You've made your points and I've acknowledged them. Regarding any planes being manufactured exclusively for AMA, virtually everything made is advertised for F3A whether it is truly capable of F3A or not. Thanks to Ryan for pointing out the Focus and BM 2.2, and I'd add the Aquila, Focus 110, Defiant, and Insight. Depending on which F3A pattern you are referring too, a great many of them require no more power than AMA Masters - in fact, many of them require less power (in terms of mah used for a flight, since the F3A patterns are shorter).

I firmly stand by my prediction that more power will be used if it is available (and it will cost more). It has always been that way, and it always will be.

Regards,

Dave

Magne,

Certainly limitations can be placed on any type of powerplant. It will be interesting to see if either powerplant is favored or dominant given time for the power systems to be developed, and if the rules are adjusted to keep parity between the powerplants.

Regards,

Dave

No, it was not full.

Dave,

I really have no idea who you are talking about in AMA. I know many who are running on the ragged edge to make weight with electrics.

The Defiant was a one of, not a manufactured airframe. I suppose any smaller then 2-meter model could be considered just for AMA, but that isn't the case. And I'll bet that the BM 2.2 wasn't designed just for AMA.

I refer to the high requirement for knife edge capability in F3A now. That is what is making the fuses get bigger, nothing else. And you're correct, a legal 5kg F3A electric model may very well not be able to fly the entire Masters pattern. Another reason to increase the weight limit in AMA.

I wasn't referring to any one person. I'd suggest most flying AMA at 11 lbs and ~4300 mah packs have realized the benefits of flying electric and are willing to push to the ragged edge (4300 is not much reserve for many flying Masters) to keep that advantage. Of course there are other reasons to fly electric.

Perhaps not mass produced (but how many pattern kits really are), but Todd Schmidt is not the only who has built a Defiant. In anycase, you asked for 1 AMA plane, and you got a list.

Bigger fuses started growing to match available horsepower (which has continually increased since the displacement limit was removed), and this was before the current KE demands in F3A.

Please reread my post - I did not state a legal 5kg F3A electric model was potentially incapable of flying the entire Masters schedule. You stated AMA power demands were less than F3A (which would suggest any F3A capable electric plane would be more than capable for Masters). I'll elaborate on my original comment. The AMA patterns may have less demand (than F3A) for specific maneuvers, but the mah used for each pattern ends up pretty close, since the more demanding F3A patterns are shorter. Most Masters schedules I've flown use slightly more mah than a P, and slightly less than an F - again, it depends on which exact schedules.

Regards,

Dave

With current setups I'm not so sure that 4350 mah packs are a practical solution. I had to use a 4350 mah pack in 2007 in order to make my Integral make weight. (it did, but just barely ...) Since then I've been able to slowly get my plane's weight down to the point where I can use a 5350 mah pack and still make weight, (again, just barely ...) and with these packs It looks like I can fly an entire season. However, I didn't get much more than 50 flights out of the 4350 mah packs.

Now, if the masters pattern was shortened to to match the length of the f3a patterns, things might be different. Also, if speed controller efficiencies, and motor / prop combination efficiencies improve, then maybe the 4350 mah packs will start to look good again. I figure I'd need to see about a 15% overal improvement in efficiency for this to happen.

All of this brings me to another thought. It seems that the primary areguments here is that the rules are currently biased against electrics, and that glow powered setups have an inherent advantage in they appear to have a little bit of design margin left that the electric setups don't seem to have.

Given this, would things be more evenly matched if the masters schedule was shortened so that using a 4350 mah pack becomes something practical to consider? I'm thinking that this simple change would be equivalent to giving electrics a 3 ounce or so margin that would make them more functionally equivalent to glow powered setups. Another unique benefit is that at no time will either glow, or electric systems gain or lose any sort of performance advantage. Everything stays exactly as it is, except that now I (and others ..) won't have to worry so much about making weight at the Nats.

There are a couple or more of other reasons to shorten the Masters class.
1. Judging load on other pilots. I'm way too old to enjoy spending over half my time at a contesrt watching the large class of Masters flyers fly a long sequence. (And not judging take offs and landings in Masters class would give judges a little break between flyers too) Makes me want to fly Masters instead of FAI so I won't have to judge them.
2. It's not really fair to the other classes that Masters takes up a much greater percentage of the contest time.

With all due respect, I am thoroughly sick and tired of this type of "fairness" argument. Masters is a higher, more challenging class with greater skills among the contestants than the lower classes. As such, one of the discriminators to help fairly pick the winner just happens to be having enough figures in a sequence so that the best pilot can rise to the top. The more you compress a schedule, the less "fairness" you have amongst the competitors in that higher class.

This is competition, not a federally mandated school lunch program.

All these arguments about costs, length of sequence, etc., are just "Red Herrings".  They are attempts to deal with a fundamental inequity in the rules.  Electrics are weighed with batteries, and IC are weighed without fuel.  This is all just political nonsense stemming from some trying to protect IC power.  Make whatever weight limit you want, just make it equal by requiring that whatever power you choose, enough fuel is on board to complete the flight.  The rest of these arguments, and rule change proposals become unnecessary.  Jeez guys..... 

I'm reminded now of the old saying. Never try to teach a pig to sing. You won't like the results and you just piss off the pig. Have fun!

1bwana1 makes some interesting points, but it seems to me that the things like changing the weight requirement, and requiring planes to be weighed with fuel, would go over a lot better if said changes were made first in f3a by the FAI governing authority. If this happens then we'd know that it's something that the whole world supports, not just flyers in the USA.

In my view it makes a lot of sense to just consider re-aligning AMA rules with FAI rules. Specifically:

1/.. Adopt the 1% tolerance rule for weigh-ins
2/.. Reduce the number of maneuvers in AMA Masters to be equal to the number of maneuvers in the current f3a patterns.

Just these changes alone would go a long way towards addressing the concerns that have been expressed on this forum, and they would also facilitate the transition back and forth from Masters to f3a.

Did Tony just call us all pigs?

I thought he was making a statement about including more pork in the federally mandated school lunch program. I've been wrong before though...

So where do the singing lessons come in?

It would seem so.

Brenner - shallower discharges will certainly improve the number of cycles for any of the lipos I've seen to date. I'm not sure of your setup, but you might be able to gain some efficiency (less mah for equivalent flights) by experimenting with different ESC settings and props which would best suit your plane and flying style.

1B, Burt, Bren - this discussion was initiated regarding AMA rules proposals that would only affect AMA. And F3A predictably entered the discussion as AMA rules have often followed F3A, and the biased interpretation (weighing electrics with batteries, and IC without fuel) of F3A also followed to AMA. While most agree fixing the bias would be nice, doing so would likely accelerate the anticipated demise of IC (not really fair to the current IC guys), or allow escalation of electrics (increased cost, also not good). It is most certainly not wholly partisan with glow guys defending the advantage glow has now, or the electric guys trying to gain an advantage (or greater advantage). I personally think it is mostly moot, as future improvements in IC will be very minor compared to improvements in electric, which will see electric dominant under the current rules in the near future.

Length of the schedules is a different discussion, and it has several facets. Having flown Masters for many years, I like the length of the schedule, and the length is needed to challenge the top level pilots. I have no problem with Masters flying longer than Advanced, and Advanced flying longer than Intermediate, etc. The progression of classes should reflect both increasingly difficult maneuvers and longer flight times - this type of progression is similar to other forms of competition. F3A went to shorter sequences purely for logistical reasons - to reduce the time needed to complete a World Championship. Given the current distribution of pilots in the AMA classes, Masters has become a bit of a logistical challenge at many local contests because of the relatively high number of Masters pilots, and the corresponding time it takes to complete a round of Masters. Alleviating this could possibly be accomplished in several ways -
- Shorter Masters sequence (which could be "beefed" up with higher average K maneuvers to retain difficulty comparable to the current length).
- Make Masters harder, which would likely push some Masters to F3A, and some to Advanced.
- Add an Expert class (between Masters and Advanced), anticipating some Masters flyers would move back to Expert (I'd favor this least, as the average number at many local contests really doesn't support an additional class).

Regards,

Dave

Not everyone.

It's just that further discussion about this with some is pointless.

Dave, I think we are very much aligned with regard to the current masters schedule. I too would like to keep the current schedule at least as challenging as it is, but I think making it much harder is going to rile up a lot of advanced class flyers, who are already concerned about the jump in difficulty going from advanced to masters. On the other hand, logistics issues at local contests are very real. I can remember a couple of times during 2009 when f3a flyers complained very loudly about the workload associated with judging 10 to 15 masters pilots.

Given this, how about considering two masters schedules like in f3a? There could be a shorter schedule for the first four rounds, and then a more challenging schedule that's flown for the last two rounds. This way advanced flyers can still move up to masters and have a schedule that they can handle, and the more experienced flyers can still find challenges that will separate the good flyers from the best flyers.

One possible twist to this would be to run contests with preliminary rounds on Saturday with the easy shedule, and then allow the top 50% of flyers to compete on Sunday with the more challenging schedule. The easy schedule could be short, and the harder schedule could be the same length as the current schedule without over-burdening the f3a pilots with judging duties.

I know that a longer finals schedule isn't going to be as effective at saving batteries, but maybe with 2/3 fewer flights that are long, battery would be improved anyway.

With all due respect, I am thoroughly sick and tired of this type of ''fairness'' argument. Masters is a higher, more challenging class with greater skills among the contestants than the lower classes. As such, one of the discriminators to help fairly pick the winner just happens to be having enough figures in a sequence so that the best pilot can rise to the top. The more you compress a schedule, the less ''fairness'' you have amongst the competitors in that higher class.

This is competition, not a federally mandated school lunch program.
[/quote]
Ed, the Fairness problem isn't all just the length of the sequence, it's more the overload of Masters flyers that take up so much of the total contest time in addition to the sequence length. I know the Masters flyers want the longer sequence (I would too if I flew Masters) but the work load on the other flyers and contest management really should be considered.

Dave Burton

Maybe I'm the anomoly, but I'd actually prefer the shorter sequence.

The time that is consumed by Masters class at a typical contest has much less to do with the length of the sequence, as it does that it is the so-called AMA destination class. The advancement rules (and to some extent "Move Up" peer pressure) cause many flyers to end up in Masters before their time. Couple this with the disparity between the skill required to be successful in the US at the highest levels in FAI vs. Masters, and I think you have the evidence before you that the contest boredom "fix" has little, if anything to do with shortening Masters sequences (and even less to do with the initial topic of this thread).

This whole battery vs fuel could be resolved simply by rewording the rule slightly to something like:

No model may weigh more than five (5) kilograms (11 pounds) gross at the completion of the flight.

Doesn't change a thing, but would give the appearance of being "fair"...

Isle 5!

I like your thoughts. Too many rules. Some rules we gotta have. Most are made to suit a certain few. Just like our govt! I believe in the run what ya brung theory. It don't matter how good you are it's how much fun you can have. I still fly AM in some of my planes. Good as any. All I know is the plane goes up, does some crazy things (thumb generated) and comes back down, all in 1 piece. I've learned over the years to agree with the boss and then go do what I want anyway. Nobody gets hurt and the job still gets done. Imagine that.
If you look around you never see the average guy in any ads for R/C equipment. It's always the super stars. Obviously the manufacturers want you to buy their stuff because it's what the "masters" use. Of course they use it it was given to them! So now most everyone goes out and buys new equipment. For what? Because somebody said you gotta use this or you can't play.
My advice, go your own way. Have fun and use your own judgement. Talk to the people in your area about having your on contests and make rules everyone can live with. Electric or fuel should not make any difference. Run what ya brung! Remember, if you can do it it ain't bragging.

You've got a good attitude, mike31. I like that.