The snake is used in compak,successful from what i heard.Trap shooting particulary,struggles to get people to try it, with the time constraints and limited entry's catered for,so im all in favour of trying to make it more viable(more people more money for the ground) maybe the snakes not the answer for trap but the way it is set up now it will never get anywhere near sporting entries.This skeet thing looks ridiculous though.
It hasn't been ditched for UT, the snake system is still lurking in the background, and Palinkas is very keen for it to be used for a major championships.
Issues with the snake system for UT are:
1. Major building alterations to the physical structure of all the shooting layouts to be used to enable the queue to enter adjacent to stand 1 and exit adjacent to stand 5.
2. The electronic computer control boxes will need to be updated to enable the traps to run continuously but still throw the individual schemes for each competitor.
3. Electronic score reporting with a visual display in each layout will be required linked to the shoot admin office, as there'll only be a master scoresheet held in each layout, no squad scorecard as now.
4. As there will be no natural break at squad changeover times which currently allows for trap reloading, there'll need to be halts introduced to the snake to allow a trapper to enter the traphouse to reload. Don't think a trapper loading whilst shooting is taking place would meet H&S regulations, especially if an accident occurred.
5. Currently in the UK for registered shoots either three or two shooters stay behind after shooting to referee the following squad. That'll finish and the ground will need to supply three referees to run each layout. One to control the shooter entering onto stand one, one to actually determine kills and losses and the other to maintain the master scoresheet and get shooters to sign it, and deal with queries.
6. I don't know of any shooting ground owner who'll be prepared to cough up the money to pay for up front costs of the above, with little of no chance or ever recouping the outlay.
These are the points that were discussed during my time as a member of the FITASC Technical Commission 2005 -2014.