so ive been flying freestyle for about two years now and finally decided to actually try racing properly. built a 5inch on a TBS Source One with an F7 stack, running 2306 2450kv motors and a Runcam Racer 4 for the camera. rates are still kind of a mess but thats a separate problem.

anyway my local club does a practice night every thursday and they let me help set up the track last week. i had no idea how complicated gate placement actually is. like we have this big open field and i thought it would be straightforward but the course layout ended up feeling really awkward when we actually flew it. some of the gates were too close together so after a fast straight there wasnt enough time to set up for the turn and people kept clipping the posts.

is there a general rule for spacing gates after a long straight? and also what kind of gates are most people using for outdoor practice, the ones we have are these cheap flag poles with pool noodles and they fall over constantly. wondering if theres something better that wont break the bank

yeah gate spacing after a straight is something a lot of first time course builders get wrong, including me lol. general thing ive heard from more experienced guys is you want at least enough distance that a pilot has one full second of buffer at race speed to set up for the next feature. so if you're running like 80mph straights that's a lot of ground. some people do a braking marker gate or a 45 degree chicane before the main directional gate to kind of force a slowdown and make it more interesting anyway.

for outdoor gates if you want something that doesnt blow over constantly look into the realacc or the vifly ones, they have weighted bases and actually hold up decent. or honestly a lot of club guys just make their own out of pvc and rebar stakes, way cheaper and you can make them whatever size you want. pool noodles on flag poles sounds like it would drive me insane

im kind of in the same boat learning to race after mostly doing cinematic stuff. rates thing is real, took me forever to get comfortable with higher expo and more linear response for gates vs what i was used to for slow rolls and stuff. whats your throttle curve looking like? that helped me more than anything when i started going faster through technical sections