I talk to a lot of Sportsman pilots who want to work towards flying Intermediate. Not all of them have a road map of how to get there, or think that digging through the IAC Official Contest Rulebook to decipher what will be thrown at them in Unknown Programs is entertaining reading for a winter evening.
At the urging of our IAC Northeast Regional Director I put together a presentation on the topic of moving up into Intermediate and presented it to my chapter's pilots. Now working with IAC folks to turn it into a webinar. One part of the process is figuring out what your current skill level is vs the skill level that you will be asked to fly at. Obviously the larger the difference between those two points, the more challenging, the less likely you are to post the score that you want, and there may even be safety issues.
The attached self-assessment survey is intended to help a pilot understand where they are today and offer guidance as to what they need to learn. An Intermediate level pilot is expected to be able to safely execute all of the aerobatic figures listed in the survey. Some friends filled out one of these surveys and the interesting result is that a Sportsman pilot who wins almost all his contests but has not done any preparation for Intermediate scores in the 50's. An Intermediate pilot who wins almost all of their contests scores in the 160's.
If I attached the survey to this post correctly, give it a read and see where you are. It is intended to help a pilot evaluate themselves, so the final result does not need to be shared.
See you at the box.
Wes
View attachment AerobaticSkillsAssessment.pdf
At the urging of our IAC Northeast Regional Director I put together a presentation on the topic of moving up into Intermediate and presented it to my chapter's pilots. Now working with IAC folks to turn it into a webinar. One part of the process is figuring out what your current skill level is vs the skill level that you will be asked to fly at. Obviously the larger the difference between those two points, the more challenging, the less likely you are to post the score that you want, and there may even be safety issues.
The attached self-assessment survey is intended to help a pilot understand where they are today and offer guidance as to what they need to learn. An Intermediate level pilot is expected to be able to safely execute all of the aerobatic figures listed in the survey. Some friends filled out one of these surveys and the interesting result is that a Sportsman pilot who wins almost all his contests but has not done any preparation for Intermediate scores in the 50's. An Intermediate pilot who wins almost all of their contests scores in the 160's.
If I attached the survey to this post correctly, give it a read and see where you are. It is intended to help a pilot evaluate themselves, so the final result does not need to be shared.
See you at the box.
Wes
View attachment AerobaticSkillsAssessment.pdf
