2021 Known Sequences Posted

[Doug Pilcher]

I have posted 2021 Sequences approved last night at the September BOD meeting. They are located in the Downloads section of main site. The only changes that occured from the 2020 Sequences was on the Advanced Knowns. Go Here - http://www.mini-iac.org/Downloads

[Dave Dupre]

Someday I will fully understand K factors. The changes to the Advanced sequence added several new roll elements to lines, but the K value went down. How does that work?

[Steve Pennypacker]

K-factor construction is all defined in the FAI Catalog for full scale. It's actually pretty logical when you see how it's laid out. Every possible maneuver is broken down into the smallest possible segments. Each segment is assigned a point value based on its difficulty. For example, he smallest arc we see in any figure is 45 degrees. So each of the 16 possible 45 degree arcs (8 inside & 8 outside) is assigned a point value.

When you construct a figure, you add up the points for all the segments and divide by 10 to get the K value for the maneuver (10 points = 1 K, for granularity). So for a loop you add up the points for each of the eight 45-degree segments and divide by 10. This is where the K values in the RC FAI Catalog come from. All we have to do on our end is add rotational elements. Software for designing sequences handles the calculations and a lot of the error checking.

I've attached a page from an old catalog that gives the general idea for some lines and arcs. Each family of figures has something similar.

The point values don't necessarily translate well to RC, IMO, because difficulty from inside the cockpit doesn't necessarily translate to difficulty from on the ground. A loop is harder from inside the cockpit; outside loops doubly so; a roll is harder from the ground, etc. But it's what we've got.

[Dave Dupre]

Steve, that is how I understand it. However, I don’t understand how you ADD more elements, but the total K still goes down. Looking again, though, it may be a change to one of the humpties that brought it down.

[Steve Pennypacker]

It looks like several figures have changed but the biggest K loss is the single humpty which loses 8 points by switching from all pushes to all pulls (-4) and simplifying the rotations (-4).

[Dave Dupre]

Looking by figure, I see that now. The change to the down loop will be interesting. Never did 2 roll elements on a loop before.