As published in K-FACTOR

 
It's contest season. Time to travel to contests, and even put on one of your own. At the District 8 meeting in April, we were discussing the ebb and flow of area contests. Although we have lost some of the old traditional contests, some ambitious folks are starting up new ones. During this discussion someone asked if there was any publication available with information on how to run a pattern contest. No one seemed to know of any, but I promised that I would try to cover some of the basics in my next column. Some of you may be bored with this, but a promise is a promise, so here goes.
 
Here are the very basic things that you need to put on a pattern contest:
 
1. A good flying site with ample over-fly area to support the box. - This may sound kind of stupid, but there are many fields out there that are not a good place to hold a pattern contest. At 200 meters, the box is 1136 feet high, 2272 feet wide and 656 feet deep. Turnarounds take even more area. If your field is small, with limited over-fly or if you have height restrictions, it is probably not a good bet. You should be able to fly the entire contest without the sun being in the box. Even flying with sun abaters (pie plates on a stick), staring into the sun is bad for everyone's eyes. I didn't used to feel this way, but I'm getting older and want to keep on seeing as long as possible. You should also have enough room for the folks to pit without stepping on each other. If you have morning sun, start late and run late. If you have evening sun, start early and quit early. If you have all day sun, forget it.
 
2. A willing club. - Since your club will have to give up the field for the weekend, at least during the day, you will need their support. How you get that support is up to you, and depends on the type of folks in your club. I would advise against telling them that you will make a whole bunch of money for the club, although that can easily happen, because you may have a couple of lean years starting out. You can make quite a bit of money, but it takes a bunch more work. We'll get to that.
 
3. Some way to feed the contestants. - Don't under estimate the importance of this requirement. It is much better to feed the folks at the field, since that keeps everyone on site and flying. We never seem to have enough time to allow for a reasonable length lunch break.
 
4. A source of workers. - This could be club members, paid workers, or a combination. You must have help, there is too much for one person to do.
 
Now that you have the basics, lets get down to brass tacks. Assuming that you have all of the above, you need to pick a date. In our district, we coordinate the contests at the AMA Scheduling Meeting at Puyallup, although I do a preliminary schedule before that to avoid any conflicts. It is better if your contest is not back to back with another, if the schedule allows for that kind of spacing. Check out the contests in your area and talk to your club before selecting the date.
 
Once you have the date, you need to put in an AMA sanction. To do this, you must have a Contest Director. You do not have to be the Contest Director, but whoever is running the contest must be. It's not hard to become one, you just take the test and assist at one contest. Of course you have to pass the test, but it's open book. I like being the CD 'cause I'm a control freak. In the sanction you must include any deviations from the rule book, so you need to decide if you will have any. You also must include for which places you will be awarding trophies, so you need to decide that as well. If money is a concern, trophies through 3rd place are fine.
 
Now you need to make some other decisions. Do you want to run a raffle at your contest? Raffles can make a lot of money, or can loose money, depending upon a how much you spend on the items. If you want to make the effort, you can start out early and solicit contributions from manufacturers and local hobby shops. Writing letters is the way to go here. The best time to start this is early in the year, before the manufacturers are swamped with requests. I recommend having a big prize, like an airplane kit, as well as a bunch of little stuff. It's the big prizes that usually pull out the money. Another thing that goes over well is non-airplane items. They draw money from the not so airplane inclined. Don't forget, if you do run a raffle you will need tickets, someone to sell tickets, and something to put the tickets in for the drawing. If you are short on money, workers and/or time, you may just want to forget the raffle.
 
What about food? I strongly suggest that you provide some food at the field. If you have the workers, field food can be quite a money maker. Just don't go overboard. I'm not a big burger fan, but that's just me. Sandwiches are good, but a bit labor intensive. You need to match the effort to your available worker pool once again. You will definitely want to provide some drinks and perhaps coffee and doughnuts in the morning. Again, do what your time and workers can support.
 
It is pretty standard these days to use a computer for scoring. It really makes the task much easier. There is a new scoring program available as an alternative to the old standard. I haven't really looked at it, but I hear it works okay. No matter which program you use, you will need a computer and someone to run it. You will also need a printer and plenty of paper. A laptop computer is really the best way to go now-a-days, since the monitor and computer are all in one piece, and quite durable, but that is a nicety, not a necessity. You will also need score sheets, stapler, and scissors to process same. The tradition in our neck of the woods is to cut each round loose from the body of the score sheet and staple it to the printed results so the pilot can tear it off and keep it in one piece. Mike Lauman's program allows you to print score sheets for each contestant, which is nice, but has one drawback. If your printer is slow, it takes a while to print each one out and slows down the registration process. Since everyone is always anxious to get started, and since it always takes longer that you think to get your poop together the first day, I don't use the personalized sheets. I just pre-print score sheets for each class with a place for the contestants name and number and let them fill it in. Low tech, but effective.
 
Now let's talk about workers. You must have a contest director. Legally, if your CD wants to fly, he/she needs an assistant CD who can run the show while the big cheese is on the line. You need someone to keep score, someone to help with registration (this could be the same person), someone to run the transmitter impound (at small contests this could be self serve), someone to cook/sell the lunch, and scribes. If you are overwhelmed with help (not the norm) you might also want a line boss to keep things moving and score runners. I have never been to a pattern contest where there was too much help. Usually the opposite is the case. Another trend out here is to hire scribes and scorekeepers, often from the children or significant others of the participants. Since the contestants are usually judging, they aren't crazy about scribing the rounds they are neither judging nor flying. In addition, when you pay people to work, they are much more likely show up and stick around, which can be a problem with volunteers. Other sources for helpers could be youth groups looking to raise money. Folks are pretty willing to pay a little more so they don't have to work so hard.
 
I mentioned judging. Out here, we have not had full time judges for years. All of our contests are contestant judged, and everyone pretty much expects it. If you have good judges that are not competing, more power to you. I would beware, however, of the folks who judge only once a year at their local contest and have never participated in a judging seminar or had any real training. While this may seem the easy way out, it often does not provide the best evaluation of the pilots. If you are the CD, however, you should NOT be judging. You must be available to handle all the little crises that will occur during the contest. You cannot do that while sitting in the judge's chair. Even if you are short on judges, resist the temptation to put yourself on the line. Don't forget you will need chairs, clipboards and pens for the judges.
 
One more item to consider is how you will indicate the flight order to the pilots. It is nice to have a board of some sort to list the flight lines and orders. Another common method is to put the names and frequencies of each pilot on a clothes pin and arrange the pins on a stick out by the judges. I have never liked this method, because to check the flight order, you must walk out to the flight line, which can be disturbing to both the judges and the pilots. I have often resorted to just posting a list by the transmitter impound when no other method is available.
 
Okay, so we now have a field, a date, a sanction, a raffle, food, a computer, workers, and some way to convey the flight order. Now you must convince folks to come to your new contest. Obviously you should get in the contest calendar in the K-Factor. You can also make flyers and hand them out at all the other contests you attend. One of the best ways to get people to come to your contest is to go to theirs. You could have a big party on Saturday night, that works too. Just get the word out and promote, promote, promote.
 
Whew!! Sounds like a lot of work. I didn't say it was easy. If you think the prep work is hard, just wait until the day of the contest. I will fill you in on how I go about running a contest next month. It's just too much to get into one column. Stay tuned for the riveting details on setting up a flight line and judge matrix. Until then, I'm off to Post Falls.
 
Keep your wings level,
 
Joan Anastasio