SSA Booth April 4-6 at nations largest RC exhibition

http://youtu.be/onFAnlK0M_4

Laughing so hard I have tears running down my cheeks. Thanks for the hoot!


"son_of_flubber" wrote in message
...
On Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:13:52 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Realistic? When you "fly" Condor, do your feet get cold?

Yep. I put my feet in a pan of ice water. Definitely adds to the
realism.

On Saturday, March 29, 2014 3:40:19 PM UTC-6, Two Shoes (Judson Knowles) wrote:
Discus launches are so cool! Amazing ho high they can get them up...



On Saturday, March 29, 2014 3:21:06 PM UTC-6, Martin Gregorie wrote:



I have friends who fly F3K discus launch RC gliders: that looks



interesting.



Check this out.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2131928

Careful with generalizations. It all depends on the individual.

True, didn't mean to say there would be none making the transition. There are definitely a few of us who have. But it is surprising when I talk to fellow modelers and ask why they don't also fly full size(of any kind), the range of responses I get as to why not. The variety in RC is tremendous at this point in time and is going through a bit of a change/advance(FPV, quads, drones etc). Exciting times there.

Setting up in Toledo today.

Thanks to the 4-6 volunteers who have signed up to work the booth for each of the 4 days! 18 total.

We already sold our first SSA FAST certificate and the show doesn't even begin until tomorrow.

On Thursday, April 3, 2014 11:30:06 AM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
Setting up in Toledo today.



Thanks to the 4-6 volunteers who have signed up to work the booth for each of the 4 days! 18 total.



We already sold our first SSA FAST certificate and the show doesn't even begin until tomorrow.

Sean, how'd it go? Got some stats for us data g33k types?

On Monday, April 7, 2014 at 12:00:56 AM UTC-4, Two Shoes (Judson Knowles) wrote:
Sean, how'd it go? Got some stats for us data g33k types?


I too would love to know how this cross pollination effort was received. Speaking as someone who is in the process of transitioning my hobby from RC to FS - I can offer some insight.

I can see the lure of trying to infiltrate the RC hobby core - it's a HUGE base - and for the most part, we already understand a lot of the basics of flight - heck, we usually understand way more than the basics of flight - moving beyond the basics in RC usually means spending hours upon hours of simulator (or field) time practicing - practicing - practicing. With RC it is definitely different as you are learning a different skill - you are learning hand-eye coordination from the 3rd person point of view with your aircraft (airplane flying at you - right is left and left is right) - that is part of what takes so much practice. Also, things happen very quickly. With roll-rates of many high-performance RC planes 2 revolutions per second, things happen very fast. Here is a good training video for learning rolling harriers - which I have been practicing on and off, and still can't get the hang of it - just to give you and idea of the crazy hand eye coordination and millisecond timing involved...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBdh9WiVmEM

The thing is... with the RC crowd... you don't have to convince them that aviation is fun or cool... you have to show them how they can use their creativity and enthusiasm in the FS world. That is the big transition.

We are use to watching planes fly through gigantic firework displays and tumble creatively through the sky synchronized to the latest heart-pumping music . You have to somehow convince this crowd that there is as much creativity, experience, and heart pumping adrenalin needed in completing a 500km XC trip as there is in our local weekend fun fly.

One thing: Improve the online experience... more videos... more introduction type videos - more explanations of what XC is - more examples of what a contest is like - no more clubs with dormant web-sites. SSA - this goes for you to! I don't want to read a full page article on what soaring is... show me a video - make it exciting. Also, what is up with all of the low-resolution images of gliders? I don't want to see pixels. I want to see high res images of some of the beautifully elegant modern gliders.

You guys are competing for the hearts of minds of people that are use to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd-nvE_NsyI

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRDHGV5dRo


regardless of all the excitement of RC stuff - I am on of the few who are ready to put everything on ebay, and devote my time to flying the real thing.... now we just gotta figure out how to convert 1000's of me's...

We had a lot of traffic at the booth but the result was hard to measure. Very few were willing to spend $150-$200 on the FAST program. What they were interested in was the video (Sailplane Grand Prix, Fine Week of Soaring, etc) that we were playing on a 50 inch LCD screen and the locations of local soaring clubs (Ohio, MI, Indiana, Illinios, etc).

Many took flyers with contact information of these clubs and were mesmerized by the beauty and adventure of the videos, as well as the conversations they had with the volunteers in the booth representing the SSA.

As the SSA spend only $400 on the booth and well over 80,000 people came thru the show...it was probably very good.

I did not do the show this year as it conflicted with contests and we failed to generate the direct revenue from FAST sales that we had hoped. Sun and Fun had the same challenges in selling FAST packages as well.

I think a better plan would be to simply sell rides directly to the local clubs...if I were to do this again. Taking an RC pilot from RC mode all the way to buying a FAST package is quite a bold journey. I think we need to give them a smaller, interim step.

Sean

The skill shown in the RC videos is extraordinary. However, I don't see that it has any more relevance to learning to fly whether RC or full size than watching a Ken Block video has to learning to drive.

On Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 11:02:17 AM UTC-6, waremark wrote:
The skill shown in the RC videos is extraordinary. However, I don't see that it has any more relevance to learning to fly whether RC or full size than watching a Ken Block video has to learning to drive.

As a one-time model builder and flyer, I can tell you it has a LOT of relevance.