Handicapping either planes or pilots is an exercise in futility.
If you have a desire to encourage less experienced flyers to enter contests, I offer the following:
1 - Shorten the winch line to something in the neighbourhood of 400-450 feet in an attempt to reduce the launch height. Keep the task times in the 5-7 minute range. This should give more flights in an event, which I believe beginners will find attractive. Limiting winch power to limit launch height would be nice, but that will never happen.
2 - Use a landing line instead of a landing spot. The landing line does not have to be the 50-foot line specified in the AMA rule book. Make the line 15-20 feet in length. Also, the distance from the line does not have to be measured in one-inch increments. Use a larger increment; experiment to find out what works best. A landing line should reduce the need to 'dork', thus reducing the stress on airframes and possibly extending their useful life. :)
This may result in a number of pilots being tied at the end of the day, but so what? Have a fly-off , man-on-man if possible, to determine the winner. The less skilled flyers will be given the opportunity to watch the better flyers and may actually learn something! After all, isn't that part of what contest participation is all about?
And oh yea, I have to add this: get rid of those stupid, ugly, 'training wheels' projecting from the bottom of your fuselage. Accept the fact that you are going to get some bad bounces. Over the long haul, the good bounces and the bad bounces will average out. In golf, we call it 'rub of the green'; its part of the game. Learn to accept the bad mixed in with the good; 'stuff' happens. :)
Happy Holidays from the frozen tundra.
Bob Johnson Fond du Lac, WI
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