2022 NATIONALS SUGGESTION PAGE

[mikecondon]

The reason for this page is to give all the chance to express there views toward the 2022 Nats. All options are welcome and will be reviewed for the betterment of 2022. I personally, with the help of a few others, have always tried to layout a plan that will work best for all concerned. I ask for input that will be constructive for next year.
A final note for all of you that may not know. The World Championship will take place before the Nats.

[killerd]

As someone who doesn't usually go the NATS, I was able to go this year and thought it went pretty well overall. I'm a CD and know what it takes to run a contest and you did a great job with what you had to work with. Here are some suggestions to help make it even better.

1. Test flying. The number system is good, but I would incorporate the pilots name with the number(maybe a sticker with his/her name), so instead of calling just the number, call the name and the number.

2. Test flying. There needs to be a person at the line to run test flying!! You have plenty of capable people to volunteer. It dosen't have to land on 1 person for the week. Deligate if need be, shifts of a couple hours each day until the masses have tested and then open it up. That person should be communicating with the person calling the numbers/names so you have the perfect flow. They should have a cart on the line to retreive long landers and help orchestrate who is flying next and allow for those who are done to go in without getting trapped for 1 more flight. If you are on the line waiting to test fly, you can help retrieve planes until its your turn. The system you have is a good foundation and can work with some fine tunning.

3. Early Launch Lights. The starter and helper did an excellent job keeping the pace moving over the week and overall deserve cudos for keeping track of what was happening. There was however a small flaw that was noticed and began to get abused. They need to have a way to detect early launches. I had a discussion with some pilots and there isn't really a consenseous on when to push. Some think after the 1 goes dark, personally I think it's when my lane light comes on. First lap pylon 1 cuts are alreay hard because the judges are still trying to idendify their planes and sometimes don't call the cut. If you early launch by a second and then get away with a pylon 1 cut, you will likely check out of the rest of the field in that heat, especially if you are one of the top 10% in speed and flying ability.


Good luck on next year and congrats on this years accomplishment!!

Doug K

[G.Freeman Jr.]

Mike,

First, thank you for hosting the nats again and also allowing us to have a voice.

I think the one thing many of us would like to see change is the removal of qualifying rounds and just running a 10-12 round contest. There are many pros to this in my mind.

1. Less impact by weather. (Racing q40 this year and not knowing if the rounds were qual rounds or finals was not really fair).
2. The finals has turned into a crash fest. 99% of the guys are flying the same speed, at the same line, and taking off at the same time. It has almost become a who survived contest for most.
3. The days are too long. Racing from 8:30 until after 5 doesn't leave much time for anything and by the end of the week guys are done. Look how many we lost on the last day. Something like no round will start after 3:00?( I am sure there are many that remember how the nats used to be with time to see the other sites, museum and other activities).

I think it would be good on practice days to give the first hour or so to only allow the class that is to be flown the next day to fly.

I think a majority vote on this would answer the question as to what people want.

v/r
Gary Jr.

[rocket]

What Gary said plus...
maybe try FAI style and use a super final to determine the winner. 10 rounds, top 16, 4 heats and the winner of each flys for the title in the 5th heat. In the 4th round this year the top 3 drivers all fell on their face. This would give them a chance to redeem themselves.
This will do away with fly offs while doing fly offs and the 4 best batting in the final heat to determine 1st through 4th.

[KRProton]

Thanks Mike and all for the opportunity to give input.

Regarding the length of the day and in the interest of saving time, one thing that quickly came to my mind was lunchtime practice sessions. I am almost always one to take advantage of the opportunity, but contrarily, lunchtime seems to stretch on and on and on when more pilots continue to go out and practice. I think you could actually hold lunch time to 30 minutes if you eliminated lunch time practice.

Thanks again.

Tim

[mikecondon]

I am finding myself to be mostly onboard with the input received so far.
I see that over 160 have read the posting with only 4 reply's. I realize its a long way off, but the 2021 Nats are still fresh in every ones mind at this time. Changes for 2022 will be solely based on the suggestions received on this page. Thank you

[Gino426018]

I also agree with eliminating the qualifying rounds. It makes more sense to do a 10-12 round matrix and even include a couple throw away rounds. Weird things can happen over the course of 12 rounds, mid airs, takeoff collisions, flame outs, etc. This also gives guys the opportunity to fly all 12 rounds as opposed to the 8 and not qualify. It can include some wildcards in there too that had a zero or two if the throw away idea is used. No racing in the US has utilized a long matrix like that with throw aways, so it would still keep the unique Nationals experience.

It was quite disappointing this year to see only a handful of guys at the end of Q40, there was honestly more spectators and support when it was EF1 racing.

Not knowing whether qualifying was going to be the actual finish or not was weird. I saw Danny Coe come back and get multiple congratulations from people that thought he had won the contest. He was very excited himself. But all that was based on weather. Going to a single matrix would fix that issue for good.

On to what Ray Brown had stated, the Super finals thing is a lot of fun, having won it myself in F3D it really brightened up my week after a disappointing showing at the worlds. Included prizes and all. If it wasn’t the top 16 guys on the matrix, and was the top 12 fastest guys then 4 wildcards (1 in each heat) that might make it interesting too.

I also think the Podium ceremony would be a cool thing to incorporate into the Nationals, champagne, trophies. It’s always a cool experience.

Thanks, Gino

[airplanescotty]

While "M" and I did not even make it thru 424, we did however,, notice one thing,,,

There was almost no time in-between our heat and our next heat!!!

I can not remember how many entrants there were nor can I remember our start time!!!

My reaction or thoughts are,,, when confronted with a class with a lessor amount of contestants, the time between heats and rounds should be monitored or controlled to ensure ample time for cleaning, inspecting, and prepping for the next heat, run to the potty, ,, etc, etc,.

Scotty & "M"

[airplanescotty]

A reassuring thought!!!!!

The medical facilities/staffng in Muncie are excellent,,, very professional, knowledgable,, capable , thorough , caring , and a great sense of humor

Yolonda sent us to Urgent Care on the main drag, don't remember the name,,, but across from the "Tire Store

Those gals were great!!! Unfortunately they took one look and said OMG and sent us to the University Hospital, not far from where we were!!!

The Urgent Care gals called the hospital told them we coming , so they ready for us when we showed up ,, very cool!!!

We have prior experience with University medical facility's and they were excellent,, this one no different!!!

So X-ray to check the bones, Antibiotic's IV for infection, and of course sewing for wound closure, Even got a Tetanus shot Med's to take home and back to the field we went,,, And,,, And,,, we made it back just in time for Cocktails !!!!!

Just Excellent!!!!!

XXOO

Scotty & "M"

[jima]

Good comments so far. I'll chime in a bit with a few thoughts. Will start by thanking Mike and all of the team who put the week of the NATS together for us to come play. It's a long week that we're ready to have it over and head home by Friday but, a couple weeks later, we're looking forward to next year.

Test Flying: Overall, I think the token system was a welcome change with a few areas that can be improved that were learned along the way. Agree that calling names or names and numbers could help. This way friends hearing someone's name being called and chase them down to let them know that they're up. Would probably help. Definitely was better than the old line method.

Early launch detection: The starter and/or asst starter MUST have a system display in their field of vision while they are watching the launch of a heat to judge for early launches. It definitely was getting abused blatantly and the starter didn't have the tools to call the cheaters out on it. The line team have to have the lights to judge the launch by, one way or another, not counting down in their head, a tap on the shoulder or judging based on the other planes in the heat..

Lunch practice: Have to agree with Tim on this. Lunchtime practice needs to be reeled in. It goes on too long. Maybe along the lines of what Gary Jr. suggested, only allow planes to practice for the class being flown that day to reduce it to those that really need it to deal with a problem for the current event. It could also be eliminated and force lunch to be shorter. I also liked Gary's idea of only letting planes for the next days event practice for a period of time after starting practice.

Format for 426 and 422: Whatever format is used, the NATS Champ must be decided by the rules in the rulebook. The way I see it, qualifying and the finals are flown by the rulebook, just as separate races under the same sanction. The fact that NMPRA points are issued for their results as separate races reinforces that. The NATS Champ should not be decided by some format of "Super Finals" that's nothing like the rulebook defines.

In regards to whether to do one contest matrix vs. qualifying/finals format, I'm on the fence and have been for many years. I see benefits to both. The thing I always fall back on is our history. Back in the last decade, we had been using the A/B/finals format for a few years and I remember a lot of complaining wanting to go back to one matrix. One year, I believe it might have been 2007, 428 Quickie was done with one matrix in response to these complaints and 10 rounds was scheduled. With two rounds to go, due to both attrition and the way the matrix fell, the contest was largely decided. The winner just had to fly his last two flights without much of any challenge. During the end of that event and after, I heard a very different opinion from many of the folks that had been complaining about wanting to go back to one matrix. Many of those folks admitted that they had changed their minds and wanted to go back to a qualifying/finals format. The message here is, be careful what you ask for.

If QM was changed to two days of 10 rounds, you'd have even less people staying for the second day because they likely have been there all week and with a couple of bad heats the first day, they would feel out of it and get an early start home. This would leave even more holes in the matrix and water down the results even more, in my opinion. At least with the finals, those 24 get a fresh start. Yes, its intense competition but, IT'S THE NATIONALS!!!

Trying to keep more people around on the last day is a waste of peoples time. The week is long and if someone isn't still in contention, most are going to pack up and head home. Accept it. Of course EF1 has more spectators around when it's over, the two biggest events are about to start and a bunch or racers are itching to start practicing. For the same reason, I don't think a "Super Finals" would do much at all to entice more folks to stay later on Friday. It would probably have even less folks stay for it. After a week, folks want to get headed home.

Jim Allen

[MikeyD]

Could move Q40 to the beginning of the week. Would allow more time for podium style ceremony and recognition during the banquet as an example. Daytona kicks off their premier NASCAR event at the beginning of the season. Just saying. If you could move pylon 2-3 1ft closer to 1 that would be much appreciated too.

Mikey D

[airplanescotty]

At my first "CD" event, Mulberry,,, I remember our starter, affectionally referred to as "Starter Dave" ,,,, he always positioned himself just outside and behind the lane 3/4 airplane!!!!

We had just returned to Pylon, I became curious,,, he seem confident in his actions,, so I asked him why he was doing that

Smart man,,,,, He could focus on the same clock as the "Callers" with the field of airplanes clearly in his forward vision!!!!!

Immediately after launch, he walked back to the cage, posted an appropriate cut, or not, and called the heat!

Scotty

[kane]

I am not in favor of a super finals to determine a National champ either. They do not use this format to determine a WC, they use this similar to what we did for Calcuttas and Dash for cash type events.

Regarding single matrix or qualifying and finals... Either way people leave or stop flying. No good argument either way. In fact to add to what Jimmy said about single matrix and guys just needing to fly to win, the same is true of finals... 1 plane and 2 plane heats are common and guys are just getting into the mix because nobody else is flying. We see it both ways. It happens in single matrix races as well as the finals at the nats.

I am in favor of a single matrix. No finals, No throw aways, just race and determine a winner. Will it change who wins? NOPE. The same people will be at the top. The same names dominate the winner's circle all year round with single matrix events.

My .02 cents.

DK

[dwc1]

Hey Mike, thanks for the opportunity to voice some suggestions for consideration. In my opinion, a change that would be beneficial would be to set a standard time that no round will start after each day. I would suggest 3:00 pm. That will pretty much ensure 8 hours of racing each day with a start time of 8:00 am. That would pretty much eliminate the need to ask workers to hang over late.

I go back and forth on qualifying/finals. The finals is always a barn burner, but as others have mentioned, some of it has become survival of attrition. The reason we end up with a lot of fly-offs is because the race was reset to only 5 rounds, which doesn't allow many rounds for separation. A single matrix contest with more rounds allows for further separation, and in turn, fewer fly-offs.

One thing I would like to see is FAI return to the nats. Those of us flying FAI only get one contest a year, unless you make the team. FAI could be done alternating rounds of F3D and F3E (F5D).

[airplanescotty]

Scotty would very much appreciate the opportunity to fly his F5D in competition!!!!!

Just saying