[RCSE] Challenge the US F3J Team at the SWC!!!

[Jim Monaco]

As acting team manager for the US F3J team I am working on novel ideas for providing challenging practice sessions for the team.  One idea I am kicking around is to sponsor an informal F3J competition on the Thursday prior to the SWC.  While Friday would be logistically better we would severely interfere with frequencies and real estate for those coming in to practice just for the SWC on Friday. Monday is out since the field is not rented for that day and there are no known venues in the Phoenix area that we could use.   I am considering bringing a couple of club winches to the event and while the US Team will be practicing real F3J launches, we could also have pilots launching off the winches at the same time.  We could argue ‘til the cows come home whether the winches are better or worse and give someone an advantage/disadvantage but FOCUS!!! This is an informal fun event – it just does not matter.  If you have F3J equipment, bring it and find some towers and have at it.  We’ll even supply F3J equipment to a few groups if you can get towers and want to give F3J a try.  If you don’t have equipment but want to give F3J a try, you can use the winches.  I’ll take the responsibility of grouping pilots into teams, remember there is no team score, teams are just arrangements for working together (calling, towing, etc).  I’ll be bringing the sound system we used at the Team Selections, so we’ll have the real thing.   I need to gauge if this is realistic and if there are enough interested pilots to participate.  If you think you would like to participate on Thursday, please send me an email and indicate if you want to use the winches or hand tow and if hand tow, whether you need equipment.   Prizes (if any) are to be determined – remember this is a low budget operation… J   Thanks - Jim