Focus on Competition
THIS IS BEING written in mid-July, so the AMA International Aeromodeling Center is buzzing with the sounds of the National Aeromodeling Championships. RC Aerobatics is the current game in town.
With each group come members of our Contest Boards, Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and so on that I get to renew acquaintances with after a year of correspondence. We are often able to discuss issues face-to-face during this time period, and that is always a nice change in this day of E-mail and Web forums.
This morning was no different, as I was fortunate to meet with Lamar Blair and Eric Henderson—the new (sort of) president and vice president of the National Society of Radio Controlled Aerobatics (NSRCA)—and Jerry Stebbins. NSRCA is our SIG for RC Aerobatics (Pattern).
The topic of this meeting was how NSRCA could help us (AMA, the Contest Board, and the general Pattern-oriented membership) with rules-change proposals when we receive them. Please make no mistake; NSRCA is not looking to circumvent established procedures. What they are offering to do is help review proposals for proper wording and problems that may make a rule, if passed, difficult to interpret.
I currently have to review the proposals, as does the chairman of the Contest Board. We do our best to assure the proposal makes sense, but even then the wording may not be clear to someone else. So I like NSRCA's offer.
We don't know the best way to implement this yet and will be discussing this further. In the meantime, I'd like to have your input as well. Any modification of a proposal would not change the original intent and would have to be done with the approval of the original proposer.
Obviously I'm not looking for this to happen only with RC Aerobatics, but across the board. I'm all for anything that helps us get better rules in the rule book. Please give this idea some thought and get back to me.
One thing that is causing a huge stir at the Nats this year is the increased use of electric power instead of engines. Pattern has many folks flying electric this year. Last year we had one.
The available power is incredible to say the least. Yesterday was very windy, and I watched several flights of electric- and engine-powered aircraft. If I were to say one had an advantage over the other, I'd have to give the edge to the electric models. The big-block four-stroke engines seemed to lack just a touch of power compared to the electrics!
This is as opposed to what we had a short number of years ago, when many electrics struggled into the air. What a change!
We also flew the first electric-powered helicopter at the Nats this year; it was a micro helicopter to boot! The gentleman flying it did a fine job with it. Of course, there are many 60-size helicopters flying with electric power also, and they too have the power of their engined counterparts.
We have a separate Electric category in the AMA rule book. I feel this was put in place at a time when the electric technology did not allow electric-powered models to "keep up" with their counterparts' running engines.
So now that they can "keep up," one has to ask, Do we still need this separate event category?
Before all the electric forums light up with "AMA is doing away with all electric events," let me assure you that that is not the case! However, it is food for thought and I'd like to have your thoughts on it.
I've probably stirred the pot enough for this month. Til next time ... MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
