On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 02:33:12PM -0800, Norman E. Timbs, Jr. wrote: | Yes, the world outside of RC soaring is very different. The soaring | world is pushed by technology and competition, while the typical | power club is based on sport/fun flying.
There are powered plane competitions too, and they're just as `pushed' by technology as the soaring world. And most soaring pilots don't compete, just like most powered pilots don't compete. | Take a Paragon from the late 1970's, a state of the art TD plane and | compare that to the state of the art today. Night and day | differences. What's so different? It's probably lighter and stronger. Perhaps bigger. More servos, maybe. Perhaps it has a vario in it, and a more modern receiver. Perhaps the new model was an ARF, and your old plane a kit. But I don't see any _fundamental_ differences. You still need to get it up there somehow. You still need to `read' it to find lift (though the vario may change that somewhat.) And really, the `state of the art' powered planes have changed similarly. The engines on glow planes may not have changed much (though gas as opposed to glow is a lot more popular on the big planes than it used to be), but the rest of the planes have changed just as much as the rest of the plane in the glider world. | Now look at what a typical glow sport plane But you're already pigeon-holing the `powered sport planes' by saying `glow'. What about the electrics? Electrics are entering the powered plane competitions now, and doing well! You're also pigeon-holed them by saying `powered plane clubs'. Park fliers don't even need clubs or dedicated fields -- just go and fly them wherever. This is a far more fundamental change in the hobby than any improvements we've seen in glider construction. Or the recent trend towards ARFs -- that is quite apparant both in the gliding and powered models. Another fundamental change in the hobby. | etc. looked like 30 years ago compared to today. Not much has | changed here I disagree. I think the changes to the gliders are relatively minor in the grand scheme of thing, and similar minor changes have been made to powered planes. (However, as mentioned before, electrics and ARFs coming of age, those are pretty major changes.) Give it 10 or 20 more years ... we may be whining about gas/glow coverage in the AMA magazine, lumping it with free flight and control line as things that `nobody does anymore'. (Though of course it still won't be quite true.) | but the guys still have fun making them fly. Well, hopefully EVERYBODY is having fun making their chosen planes fly. If not, why bother? | There are groups that pylon race Quickees and F1, and fly pattern, | etc. but it's only a small percentage compared to all the sport, | non-competitive flyers out there. And the same is true of soaring pilots. Certainly, I know far more soaring pilots that don't compete than who do compete. (I've competed in a few fun-flys. They were sanctioned AMA events. Does that count?) The (vocal?) members of this list are not representative of the soaring community -- this list tends to attract people who compete. But only a very small percentage of the community is a member of this list. -- Doug McLaren, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there! 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
