As someone who has recently been on the entry level of contests (four
regional and one national in the past four years) I wonder if it might
be more fruitful to have additional learning oriented contests at the
entry level rather than creating a tier of contests between Regional
and National.

There is a lot of talk about needing more contest pilots but where is
the effort to encourage pilots to come out and try a contest, learn
contest flying and perfect their skills? It seems to me that if we are
to make an effort to create more contest opportunities we should be
doing it at the entry level rather than the upper echelon. I do
understand that one intent of 'Regional Nationals' would be to free up
'regular Regionals' for reverse seeded and lower rated pilots. Is that
correct? But is a Regional really a learning environment which will
encourage more pilots to give competition a try and/or learn to
compete?

As I have learned to compete in this sport I have been alert to find
opportunities to improve my competition and xc skills. From what I
have seen the opportunities to learn and practice competition skills
are scarce unless you happen to be a Junior. It appears to me (and
please correct me if I am wrong) that the majority of competition
camps exclude non-Junior pilots. (BTW: I am not all being critical of
the Jr. camps.) I attended a 'competition camp' here in Reg. 12 last
year and, despite the best of intentions and efforts by the sponsors,
the competition part of the camp really didn't happen. Class time was
spent with the beginning XC pilots. Thus some of the discussion was
over their heads and the majority covered basics.

There is the one contest at Air Sailing which is billed as an entry
level contest and they do a great job giving pilots an opportunity for
their first contest experience. But what about setting up training
contests east, west, and midwest? Including classes by proven contest
pilots in the morning, contest tasks in the afternoon, and then review
and critique in the evening. It might just get some of our experienced
and new XC pilots to give competition a try and provide an opportunity
for those who have flown contests to hone their skills?

John Downing