FTFF 2014 was great EXCEPT . . . The offical(ish) constructive criticism thread

[Craftydan]

"So I went to FTFF and had a great time . . . but . . . "

We want to make FTFF 2015 even better, and if we don't know what went wrong, we can't fix it. This thread is a place for all those attending (or taking part in livestreams) to share anything we voulenteers did poorly or even well, but could have been better.

To keep this constructive, a few ground rules:

- You have the right to be unhappy with what occured, but please keep to the facts.
This is the place for looking at problems to make sure things are run better, not assigning blame for what happened.

- For those reading responses, a reply to help clarify what happened is good, but defending positions is not
If something is not right it needs to come to the surface, even if the claim sounds unfair to you. If a claim is unfair, this thread is one of the few places it will stand without needing defense. This thread is about the free-flow of people's not-the-best experiences. Establishing facts is practical, but, disagreement or argumets are out of place.

- Ideas are far more useful than complaints
You don't have to know how to fix it, but if you've got ideas, it's far more helpful . . . and far more likely we might do it your way

- Not every idea or problem will be addressed, but they'll all be considered
Please don't be shocked if next year you get to say "I told you so, and you did it again". Some problems aren't easy to fix, and FTFF2015 won't be perfect, but we'll try to make it better. We won't ignore the complaint, but we might not be able to fix it.

- Non-attribution
Again, this isn't about assigning blame, but doing it right the next time. This is NOT the place for "So-in-so in an orange-ish shirt was rude to me". That's a ligitimate issue, but anything that centers around an individual's action needs to be handled in PM. Send either me or FlyingMonkey a PM about it. We want to hear, but this isn't the place for it. PM's about problems with individuals will be looked into, but posts about individuals will be moderated.


So . . . what could we have done better?

 

[Dreamwalker]

The Registration Tent.
The traffic flow was awkward at first, having to jump from one line to another,but I feel worked fine by Saturday. Flowed from left to right.
Bitoger had a great idea, have everyone's pre-registration "stuff" in a packet, Progamme, Pilot I.D.(filled out),wrist band,etc.
Then after check-in all you would have is the AMA sign-in.

 

[bitogre]

Things to repeat:

• The event in general
• Do the various combat events again. All of them. Including Dan’s Bloody Wonder only combat. Possibly more, especially if a longer event. Maybe a paintball combat (I understand this may not have been allowed by the Fureys and understand if that is the case)
• Podcast from the event tent.
• Build tent

New Event Ideas:

• World Record Attempt for Most RC Planes in the Air at once. Current record seems to be 99 planes from SEFF 2008. I think Flite Fest can beat that, especial given that many FPV use frequencies other than 2.4GHz. For all we know, this could be combined with a combat.
• Night Bowling or other more organized night events.
• An Auction. This is something I have seen done at a gaming event I attend. Often, many of the items are donated to the event to help fund next year’s event. This may not fit into what you want for Flite Fest but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Improvements:

• More days for the event. 3 days just did not seem to be enough time. I would be there for an event up to 9 days (Saturday to the following Sunday). Maybe the first day or two could be for volunteers only to help get things setup and ensure volunteers have special activities just for them as they maybe too busy to participate in the normal event’s activities. Speaking of volunteer special events, one volunteer group has a special volunteer only post event dinner following the cleanup after the event. The volunteers did have to pay for the dinner in this case but gave them a chance to socialize and for the event leaders to give special recognition to outstanding volunteers.
• I think one of the two below options should be used to streamline pre-registered guests.
  • Pre-prepared packets for faster registration of people who are pre-registered that eliminate need to look up stuff on the computer. SEFF does this for pre-registration. Also, as a part of this, you can pre-verify AMA membership so showing AMA card at registration is not needed and attendees a good reason to pre-register. I’d be happy to help develop systems for generating these packets (including but not limited to writing the backend AMA verification and database management and a system for printing Pilot badges and other labels to minimize human labor of preparing the packets).
  • Hardwired internet for registration connected to onsite consolidated pre-registration database. I helped in the registration tent and it was problematic when the internet went down and having two separate lists for pre-registration was less than ideal. I can help develop an onsite database system that would help with streamlining the process of handling pre-registered guest.
• Build Tent:
  • More trash cans in build tent. Too many people were dropping scraps of foam on the ground (many not thinking and some were accidental from wind blowing the scraps off the table). I think having a small trashcan at every table would help keep the build area neater.
  • Better Power system for build tools and charging. We had power breakers trip several times and I question how safe the electrical boxes were (especially in the rain). Also, charging station probably should be DC (not AC as it was) with banks of Lead Acid batteries to balance out load on generator (or go Green with solar panels). I’d be happy to help come up with better solutions for this for next year.
  • Larger build tent.
• Live switching the Live Stream. Some of the coverage (specifically the combat) would have been better with multiple cameras and instant replay. Could also connect switcher to FPV receivers to get live feeds from aircraft.
• For the PodCast from the event tent, start with registration numbers. Also, announce any contest winners at the event (like who won the various combats).
• Better volunteer scheduling. I never felt comfortable with knowing where I was expected when nor did I understand how much time was expected of me. As such, I never got a chance to fly. That is my one regret of the event that the organizers could have done something about and may have been partly my fault. Do not get me wrong, I was happy to help and would do so again. I’d even be willing to work as much as I did, assuming I knew that ahead of time (so I could leave my planes at home).
• You may want to have this at a different time of the year. I am not sure how much of an option this really is but with sunset so late, there was not as much time for “night” activities.

Things that I do not think were needed. I could be wrong and others may disagree with me but these are things I think you can leave out without any detriment to the event.

• Floppy dudes
• Inflatable Projector system
• Bounce House. This one I was hesitant to add. I understand the reason for it but it seems that it was not used for most of the event due to power limitations. As such, I am not sure it was ever needed.

 

[ofiesens2]

Building on Bitogre's point about trash cans in the event tent, maybe just more clean up in general. Several times I needed to fix something over there, and couldn't decide whether a spot was open or being used.

Also, there was a bounce house?

 

[Craftydan]

Also, there was a bounce house?

Sort of. It was behind the vendor tents that were behind the build tent. We had a few vendors show up nearly unnanounced wanting the primo flight line space. Primo space they couldn't get, and no where else to put them but there, blocking the way to the bouncy castle. In the end, the build tent was too power hungry to support both, so it wasn't open for more than a few hours. FWIW, the smaller kids seemed to enjoy it while it was available.

Austin is painfully aware of this vendor issue and has said the layout will be run up well in advance and space allocated by the square foot to lock in the vendors ahead of time. He's got some ideas for re-positioning things, but I'm sure suggestions would be welcome.

 

[earthsciteach]

The limiting point in terms of garbage was having only a single dumpster. I was blown away that the dumpster was completely full in less than 24 hours. I think 3 or 4 dumpsters are needed. These could be spaced along the property to facilitate can emptying. Mr. Furey seemed to be running trash on the Polaris all day long.

 

[crash bandicoot]

I will say that I saw about the bounce house is that when it was in use on Saturday it was loaded up with kiddos.
Also, I was a huge fan of the floppy dudes, and watching people hit them. It broke up the flying time well.
Bitgore, you are nicer than I was, I cleared my own space every time I needed the build tent. There seemed to be water bottles all over the tables on Friday when I used it. I then used my own tent and table on Saturday.

I was wanting to fly in the swappable design fly on Saturday with my Do-335 swappable but that never seemed to happen.
I would also like to recommend for next time a full time volunteer for Josh Bixler. The poor guy was so nice he couldn't do anything. He couldn't even get the 200% FT Cruzer back to the flight hangar after flying it.

Also for the volunteers, maybe we should have an "Adult Swim" kind of time, where for 15 minutes, the volunteers and the flitetest cast can fly every 2 hours during the day or something like that.

The only thing I had trouble with as a flyer, is that the instructions on my pilot pamplet said if I couldn't tie my transmitter directly to my receiver, to not use it, or go to the marshal's tent. Was there a marshal's tent? I never saw a tent that looked like the right one, so I would just go out to the flight line and do my fine tuning before flying.

The one thing that I loved was the laid back atmosphere. That needs to stay, I didn't feel uncomfortable even though it was my first big flying event.

 

[makattack]

I know that FliteTest owns the Floppy Dudes, and the motors/blowers were the most expensive bits. I actually LOVED when one of them got taken out (the white one) and Peter strung it to the back of his cargo plane, and flew it around with people trying to hit it. Someone actually flew into it, I believe. That was great to watch. I hope they keep that floppy dude as a mega streamer...

My biggest concern was being in the build tent when people ran up their motors with props... I saw / heard it happen a few times with a mix of no impact and a few near disasters. I mentioned to a group near me once, that it was generally recommended to not have the prop on when powering up. Actually, I think I wasn't as nice... I might have said "please don't have the prop on for safety when you're powering up." They agreed, it was a smart thing to do, but then on a different day, I think I heard a motor run up on one of their planes inside the tent, and the whole motor mount ripped off their plane. As a volunteer, I didn't want to come off as a disciplinarian, but having a prop cut up people would have taken me away from helping people build to helping people stop bleeding which just isn't much fun at all.

 

[bitogre]

The limiting point in terms of garbage was having only a single dumpster. I was blown away that the dumpster was completely full in less than 24 hours. I think 3 or 4 dumpsters are needed. These could be spaced along the property to facilitate can emptying. Mr. Furey seemed to be running trash on the Polaris all day long.

This reminded me that someone mentioned to me the idea of including recycling. Much of the trash was bottles and other recyclable items. Not sure if the idea is really feasible but I figured it was worth throwing it out for consideration.

 

[Team_Monkey]

I really don't have any complaints for the volunteers. I was totally selfish and went in search of fun for myself and random buds I could draw into some sort of chicanery. That and being "on-call" to help mama with the kids at the camper (long other story) kept me a little unsettled. So I say "Big mahalos to all volunteers"!

Thoughts for flightline management:
#1 Speak your mind... They did make a couple announcments to try and remind folks to call out intentions like "taking off, going on the field, clear of the field, landing ..etc.) but the sound system only got so far.
--Maybe a friendly flight line/ safety leader to walk the line and make suggestions?

#2 Pattern? What's a pattern...? We had alot of new folks so I'm not baggin' on anyone here. I can't tell how many times the pattern was taking off/landing with the wind or when there were folks flying both left and right hand patterns at the same time.
--How about a pattern arrow for each flight line? This is nothing more than a small sign with arrows, or an arrow cutout on a stick to point in the direction of travel on the runway. If the wind changes during the day the pattern can be changed by the safety officer or if all flight stations are informed and agree.

#3 Oh were you waiting...? Again, I'd like to just chock this one up to new folks and not folks being rude on purpose.
--I saw several instances of folks waiting behind a station, behind the safety line with a plane in hand and another person just walk up and start flying. In essence "cutting" in line. Perhaps a pre-FTFF podcast or short amusing video on flight line etiquette would be in order? That might address all the items above.

I saw smiles all around last weekend so no one got too worked up over anything. The first two items above are more of a safety concern though and seem easily addressed.

 

[wilmracer]

I really don't have any complaints for the volunteers. I was totally selfish and went in search of fun for myself and random buds I could draw into some sort of chicanery. That and being "on-call" to help mama with the kids at the camper (long other story) kept me a little unsettled. So I say "Big mahalos to all volunteers"!

Thoughts for flightline management:
#1 Speak your mind... They did make a couple announcments to try and remind folks to call out intentions like "taking off, going on the field, clear of the field, landing ..etc.) but the sound system only got so far.
--Maybe a friendly flight line/ safety leader to walk the line and make suggestions?

#2 Pattern? What's a pattern...? We had alot of new folks so I'm not baggin' on anyone here. I can't tell how many times the pattern was taking off/landing with the wind or when there were folks flying both left and right hand patterns at the same time.
--How about a pattern arrow for each flight line? This is nothing more than a small sign with arrows, or an arrow cutout on a stick to point in the direction of travel on the runway. If the wind changes during the day the pattern can be changed by the safety officer or if all flight stations are informed and agree.

#3 Oh were you waiting...? Again, I'd like to just chock this one up to new folks and not folks being rude on purpose.
--I saw several instances of folks waiting behind a station, behind the safety line with a plane in hand and another person just walk up and start flying. In essence "cutting" in line. Perhaps a pre-FTFF podcast or short amusing video on flight line etiquette would be in order? That might address all the items above.

I saw smiles all around last weekend so no one got too worked up over anything. The first two items above are more of a safety concern though and seem easily addressed.

I think all three of these are great ideas. I did get chastised at one point by a VERY polite and friendly volunteer about the pattern. I'm an experienced flyer and IMO at that moment the wind was basically directly perpendicular to the runway. I decided in a takeoff to the left and a generally left-turn pattern and he indicated I should have been going to the right. Either was fine as far as safety IMO, but it would be great to have it posted. I know it is just one more thing to manage, and with so many newer pilots in the air the pattern often seemed to be what ever they could manage (which is fine with me... I can fly around them)

I saw a bit of the cutting as well, but it never seemed malicious or purposeful... just everyone excited to get in the air.

Finally, I COMPLETELY agree with announcing your intentions... clearly and LOUDLY. You also need to pay attention to what others have announced as well. I had one close call where I announced a landing from the right and while I was on final and about 10ft up a younger guy yelled "on the field" and ran out without looking to his right. He almost got a haircut from my P-51... But of course that is how we learn, right ;-)

 

[herk1]

BY FAR the biggest negative experience for me about Flitefest was all the cigarette smoke. I am not exaggerating when I say that at Flitefest 2014, I inhaled more second-hand cigarette-smoke than I have done since I was a child in the 1960s (when practically everyone smoked, and the ill health effects of second-hand smoke were not as well established). It was just unreal -- almost like the last 30 years of progress in keeping cigarette smoke out of public areas never happened. At times it was near-impossible to find a patch of fresh air in the central flightline area. I was constantly having to gather my things and move elsewhere because of the arrival of some inconsiderate smoker.

I think it's worth a try to take some measures next year to encourage smokers to be more considerate of others...like establishing designated smoking areas away from the more crowded areas like the flightline and build tent, or at least posting "thank you for not smoking" signs in those busy areas, and/or posting signs to smoke only in designated areas, putting guidance in the pre-event FAQ and elsewhere that smoking will be permitted only in designated areas, and so on. It may or may not help (rude people will be rude regardless of signs asking for consideration), but I think it should be attempted. Especially when there are so many small children about. Cigarette smoke is not family-friendly.

 

[RAM]

Wishlist items:

1. Team combat build (- Random groups picked to build and then fight their best ideas to the last plane standing. A box full of parts and that's all you get. See which group can build the most durable combat plane from similar items.

2. Speed buildoff - group effort to get your groups bird in the air first, reach a target, and safely land.



What could be done better next time:

1. Some random seating near the flight line for visitors.

2. An official lunch break. I think this would help the food vendors out and also give people a time and place sit and chat together.

3. Ongoing builds and build tricks. Put a camera on this, keep it live on a big screen, and keep staff and volunteers rotated throughout the day for Q&A on building techniques. Let the scratchbuilders show thier stuff to the rest of us.

 

[Splatwillicrash]

PA system

The PA system was great to a point, but especially down the flight line, It got to a level of inaudibility. The generators on the RV end would drown it out about half way to the 3D line, and the wind would carry it away if you were well upwind on the line. Perhaps a second (third?) set of speakers spaced down the line would help. Also that would mean you would not have to drive the single set so hard that people in the build tent and vendor areas would be blown away in an effort to reach everybody else.

To that end I loved the music and maybe you could do a couple songs that are like tags for messages, one song that is for contest announcements, another for General announcements. You could also do quick canned announcements, like Please remember to observe the current pattern for your flight area, remember to call your intentions etc. Set a timer to remind the sound person to do them every hour. Could even make it funny.... Its 12:00 do you know where your FT Flyer is?

I hesitate to bring this up cause I am not into commercials, but maybe an announcement about food vendors because some people did not even know they were there.... A couple of announcements a day, "30 min specials", "Dollar Dogs", "1/2 off on funnel cakes" throughout the day would help drive sales. I only say the cheese steak folks for one day did they bail due to power issues or poor sales?

Do you think a small separate PA system in the build tent would be helpful? I know reminders to clean your build area before you go off to fly would have saved a lot of volunteers the task of crawling around picking up foam and other trash on Saturday night during the storm....

We could have folks use Josh's suggestion of using the build bag taped to your table to keep your scraps in... Also maybe a box at every table (or every other adjoining table) that has all the tools in it. Those Plastic shoe boxes come to mind... I picked up at least 15 box cutter blades Saturday night, several out of the grass.

 

[Strix]

Lots of good points being made in this thread.

The biggest hiccup that I experienced was registration on Friday morning. I agree with BitOgre and others who have said that preregistered attendees' stuff should be ready to go. And there should be a hard copy of the attendee list at the registration desk. You always need to have a plan B, especially when computers are involved.

The wristbands bugged me. They were too small for my fat adult male wrist. I wore mine anyways, and it left a tan line! LOL I would have preferred a hand-stamp, or at least a much larger wrist band.

The pilot tags were laminated with shiny plastic that we were asked to write on with Sharpies. The writing was not very durable as a result. Next year's pilot tags should have a matte finish area that can better accept writing. (More space would be good, too... space for full names, forum/screen names, state/hometown, etc.)

The wife and I were camped out way down near the heli line. There was a lack of speakers at this distance from the main flight line, so we missed a lot of announcements. More speakers are needed next year. (Maybe a low-power FM transmitter could be used, like at the drive-in movies.)

The shower trailer was great, except the aircon didn't seem to be working. It sure was nice to be able to take a decent shower! I'm not sure how many people took advantage of it... I only used it once, on Friday afternoon, and I had it to myself. I hope it's there next year, too.

I saw a lot of people flying without being at a pilot's station. I may have even been guilty of this a time or two myself (generally early in the morning). I'm not sure if this is something that needs to be addressed, or ignored... I have no suggestions LOL

The volunteers were great, but they often seemed to be lost and looking for something to do. I agree that more structure is needed for the volunteer work force. There should be assigned tasks/duties and maybe even a timeclock with a policy to only allow volunteers to work X hours per day, forcing them to take some time for themselves, and get their own flying and fun time during the event.

I thought it was executed extremely well overall. Even more amazing that it was done so well the first time around. Austin and the rest of the Flite Test crew truly outdid themselves in giving us a first-class festival. And I'm sure they learned a lot and next year will be even better!

 

[Splatwillicrash]

Confusion on the Flight Line

I was told in the early period during setup that the rough area before the runway was the staging and checks area, and that the runway itself was the Pilot area and the field beyond was the actual flight area. This worked fine as long as someone was hand launching, and recovering out in the field.

Problem was some folks were using the runway as a runway(imagine that), so many of the pilots flew from the rough before the runway "up against the caution tape". I understand that they need runway for some of the models, maybe we could designate one area for "runway required"? I am easy as long as we have one plan, I can fly from the rough, but if the handout said one thing and we did something else confusion reigns supreme.

I know Austin mentioned they might move out into the field next year and have different areas spread out more. Just a thought since as a volunteer I would have liked to have followed the plan, and encouraged others to do so as well.

I agree regarding the announcing intentions, I as a flyer noticed several flyers just bolt onto the field willy nilly, or do so even after someone calls a LOW PASS saw this twice and I barely flew all weekend so I know it happened a lot. While some of this was no doubt covered in the handout and the pilots meeting, many people never read the handout, and the Pilots meetings were optional to begin with. (did we even have one on Friday). Maybe we need to make pilots meetings more often, (twice a day) and dare I say attending one mandatory?

The Flite Test community is an amazing and wonderful bunch of folks, who would comply in a second with anything that was suggested, but they need to know what that is. I asked some folks if they made it to the pilots meeting and only two out of 6 said yes. The wonderful thing about FT is that it is bringing many new people into the hobby and for many this was their first large scale Fly In. For a parent and child new to the Fly In scene, heck they don't know what they don't know".

To that end, I agree that a Show or Podcast or even a series of short Shows would be great. That way attendees could be briefed in advance before coming.....Flight Line procedures, General Setup, Camping Setup, etc. Kinda like the how to fly a multi-rotor instructional video.

 

[MrClean]

I wasn't there, complaint number one. It was 10 hours away and I am way to busy at work, couldn't go.
A thought on smoking I hope folks will check out next time. I went to a St Patrick's day parade this year and was surrounded by smokers AND it didn't bother me one bit.
They were all using E Cig's. You might limit tobacco products to only a small area but allow the E Cig's anywhere. It might encourage folks to start using the devices.
Maybe next time I can get there but I know if I do I'll have to not drag a floppy arm dude behind my plane because Team Monkey will run into it.

atta boy Monkey.

 

[Balu]

As someone from team overseas I'd love to get a date for FTFF2015 as early as possible. We need to get a visa, passport, plan flights, apply for vacation at work and perhaps arrange a little more holidayish activities like touring the US.

 

[Flynn]

I totally agree with Team Monkey. I have only been to a few events. That's being said I instinctively looked for a line to get on to wait for the next available flight station on the main flight line. I think some form of "pattern" could have been suggested. I have to apologize if I walked in front of someone waiting for a station, I hope I didn't do that. Also having a spot way down at the end, by the 3D flight line, I couldn't hear the PA at all. I think the FM local station thing would be helpful.

I can only hope next years event is as great as this year was!

 

[wilmracer]

Cigarette smoke is not family-friendly.

I would also agree with this. I didn't notice it as much as herk1 did, but maybe I was setup around fewer smokers...