Alas, the more you charge people who drop out, in terms of non-
refundable deposits and so forth, the more pilots will simply show up
at the last moment without registering. One could, I suppose, send
them home, but then we end up with even fewer pilots and even fewer
contests.

Let's think instead about how to make contests more fun and more
attractive so more people want to show up in the first place, and less
costly to put on so more clubs and operators want to run them.

John Cochrane BB