SL Air Racing

[Aeon Voom]

One of my best buddies in Sl is Darsh Lucero. He is like me an aviation nut and remotely a gamer. He recently came up with an idea on how to get Air racing events in SL going again. All more or less in the spirit of the famous Red Bull races.

Here is what he wrote. Since he did not posted it here for some reason, i do it and he can chop me to pieces afterwards.

 

From Darsh Lucero:

 What I want to start here is a long (or incredibly short, depending on the turns it takes) discussion about Air Racing in SL. I know it has been tried in the past, and it is pursued today, by various groups/makers/sim owners etc etc, with alternating results.
It is not my intention to diminish/offend/mock anything of the above, I just want to try a differently organized approach. That is, the creation of an Air Racing Committee, that will, in turn, produce standards and regulations, and organize a full championship with one or more classes for the 2012 season (not a typo).

Here are my thoughts and proposals:

1. AIR RACING COMMITTEE
A central body that manages the championship as whole. Could be made of all aircraft manufacturers and all circuit owners, plus a representative of pilots. With an external president (none of the previously mentioned; relatives/partners and alts included).
Why a committee? To include every possible view and yet manage to produce unbiased (as humanly possible) resolutions and proposals. The more representatives are in, the more authoritative the committe will be.
The first tasks for such a committee would be defining classes, rules, and standards. YEP, standards.

2. WHY A STANDARD
Defining an universal, locked standard (mostly for performance and engine scripting) would instandly open up the championship to everyone.
Until now, air racing in SL has been attempted in various forms, by various makers, none of which compatible with the other (as far as i know) in terms of class, handling, speed.
This, in my view, has been a limiting factor for development of a meaningful championship. With a standard, comparable performance airplanes, everyone would get their fair share of fun. Talent, no more the machine, would be the driving edge.
While I understand that this would let down many scripters, theres still room for builders: there are various air racers out there....
And, a single standard would immediately defeat all cheating accusations (given that appropriate controls against custom modifications are in place).

3. A GREAT EVENT
Several race courses through SL. An official championship. Large events with media coverage (yes, let's involve SL television in this!). Sponsorization and advertising. What's not to like?

4. SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY
I was thinking about proposing 3 classes, or championships.
- ACRO: based off RL acrobatic championships, the emphasis would be less on speed and more on skills, having the contenders manouver through a pattern of different gates, each one corresponding to a specifical acrobatic figure. C'mon, you already know how it works...
- FORMULA: prototypes, not particularly powerful, some kind of "entry level" in the racing championship.
- UNLIMITED: the highest peak, where speed thrills. Mostly derived from WWII warbirds. Pylon racing at its best.
This is just a proposal canvas, nothing set in stone; many classes or championships could be created, like seaplanes, rocket planes, jet planes, endurance, helicopter... you name it.

5. CONCLUSIONS
...and that's what I had to say. I stepped forward the first step; now it's up to you all guys and gals make it come true. Many are and will be skeptical; trying to do something shared for all the aviation community has been in the past a nearly impossible task (herding cats was the best case scenario). It's up to you to make it come true. If you're interested, talk about this with everyone you know; link this topic in your groups; discuss with your pals what you can do to make Air Racing in SL great. All opinions and ideas are welcome; drama and turkey shooting is not. Your mileage may vary.

[Sean Martin]

That can be done.

But I think to make it more stable, there needs to be a standard developed by one person or brand like mentioned above. But also provide a kit for arena's, tracks, for people to setup their own events and races. This allows the community to set things up as they see fit. It gives them some control. And also provide an affiliate vendor for all of them to display related products, airplanes, or other tools. But that should be obvious.

Then organize the best of those tracks into one tour or committee. The tour would showcase each track by having events over time, going from one track to the other. That just adds to variety.

You could still have a main center race track of course. But without other tracks it becomes pointless. Nobody wants to fly at one place all the time, it gets old. Not to mention only so many users can fit in one sim at any given time.

SLTV basically does this with our Simball kit for the Japan community. And CSR did something similar for a year. VSN before that with classic simboarding. Which you can still find on Treet.TV under VSN Simboarding.

So it definitely can work.

[Aeon Voom]

Sorry Sean the aviation community is a little icky there.

The problem is that in SL aviation there are alot of brands allready. And everyone likes to have a piece of the cake.

Our temporary solution would be to make fixed Flight engines with a very slim api so that these brands can grab the script and make their own racer wich would fullfill the racing benchmarks.

Thats the whole reason why Darsh wants the Aviation community to stick their heads together and form a commitee to oversee those benchmarks. I offered my help to script these engines for free. I got no business interest in racers but i can script a fairly well low lag flight engine.

 

[Sean Martin]

Ah I see. So it's the curse of recreation and the market is flooded already.

I suppose it works with unique items but then you lose the classic collectors appeal. Since nobody relates to a unique product outside of SL. And they don't come into SL thinking about it.

So yeah, it would be more about the organization itself. And making a standard that way.