The details of serious contesting has been gone over ad infinitim here in the past, so I won't reiterate my views...
But, I'll give an example of a great gathering of people for soaring that I participated in last weekend as an example of a fun weekend. Last week I headed down to Brazil, the second time that I have gone there. The attraction: a full three days of fun flying, with the occasional semi-contest breaking out, just for fun. The contest part was all-up/last down HLG, and modified F3J (different target times, and the time starts at the same time for all pilots). But mostly, just fun flying with a lot of scale ships in the air at all times. The tow plane seemed to be in the air almost continuously, and occasionally two tow planes were up at the same time. Think of Visalia without the annoyance of not being able to fly when you want! And best of all, the people there are great fun, always smiling and laughing. I've learned a little bit of Portuguese, but much of it is probably not fit for polite company! There are two aspects to why people go to events. One is the serious side, the competition. The other is the social side, the fun and cameraderie. If the focus is on the competition, it seems that the event declines in participation. If the focus is on the enjoyment of participation, then the event grows. The trick is in getting a good marriage of the two into a single event. The two times that I've been to Brazil were about the best two events that I've attended from an enjoyment perspective. What I'll remember for a long time are the friends that I've made there. Also, the flying is very good there, with amazing thermals at mid-day, but that is secondary to the overall fun factor. Joe RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
