February 2001 5
FAI—just three letters, but three letters
which can surely liven up a conversation
among competitive aeromodelers.
For those who might not know what the
letters stand for, they are the acronym for
the Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale, the international
organization representing aerosports in the
world, to include aeromodeling.
Recently, US success in the
international arena has been a mixed can
of worms, with huge success in some
areas, Indoor Free Flight for example, and
huge disappointment in other areas, such
as Scale. In between is the gamut of
emotional states.
Unfortunately, some people seem to
think that anything less than a one-twothree
sweep of a World Championships is
failure. Those critics are quick to point out
that we have some high level competitions
in this country, which “rival” the World
Championships.
The extremists even go as far as to claim
these contests are “bigger, better, and of
more importance” than the World
Championships. To these people, all I can
say is, well—poppycock.
We have some very large, high level
contests in this country, and without
belittling those great events, they are still
not the World Championships, any more
than the Boston Marathon is more
prestigious than the Olympics.
In this country we seem to be
predisposed to creating our own
competitive events, and then overstating
their importance.
Take baseball for example. Although it is
growing in other parts of the world, this is
really an American sport, yet we have
referred to the professional championships
for baseball as the “World” Series.
We have the Super Bowl for American
football, while the rest of the world looks
at the World Cup as the championship of
football.
Everywhere else in the world, Formula
1 is the open-wheeled class of automobile
racing, but here we seem to be more
concerned that CART (Championship
Auto Racing Teams) and IRL (Indy Racing
League) remain divided.
Let’s face it, we march to the beat of a
different drummer in the US when it comes
to competitive events, and our aeromodeling
events are no exception.
We have a few events where we use the
FAI rules for our domestic competition, but
those seems to be the exception. Even in
those classes where we do use the FAI rules,
we seem to be prone to making slight
modifications to the rules or the procedures,
which leads to a little confusion or
disadvantage when we actually have to fly
by the pure international rules.
Adding to the confusion is a lack of
understanding of the rules on the part of
those who stand on the sidelines and
explain the reason we don’t do as well as
we should.
I recently received a letter in which
someone stated that we would do much
better at an upcoming World
Championships in Canada than we did at
the last one in Europe because the judges
would be Americans and Canadians,
rather than Europeans. This is simply not
so, and shows a lack of knowledge of the
rules of World Championships
competition.
At all World Championships there is a
maximum of one judge from a country,
and the US has had a judge on the panel of
virtually every World Championships that
uses judges.
I do recognize that the geographics
and demographics in Europe result in a
heavier European weight on many
judging panels, but this is unavoidable in
a practical sense. If we had a “one judge
per state” rule, an event would tend to
have more judges from the East than from
the West, because of the comparative size
of the states.
How do we improve our performance in
international competition? Should we
bother continuing to take part? Both of
these are valid questions, and I hear
regularly from those who think we should
abandon the FAI and forget international
competition.
I’ve even heard some say that the rest of
the world should come over here to some of
our premier events “if they want to see some
real competition.”
I also see some real pride and hard
work going into FAI competitions by
people who see that this is the highest
level of competition, whether we like the
rules or not.
If we are going to improve our level of
competitiveness in international
competition, we need to have more
competitions in which we use the
international rules. We have some
categories in which the team trials are the
only chance for our competitors to fly
under the actual rules used in international
competition.
We need to use the international rules
more, or we need to decide we will not
take part in some events. If we are unable
to inspire our members to organize more
competitions that use the FAI rules, then
perhaps we should not field teams in some
classes where interest is insufficient, and
concentrate on those in which there is
sufficient interest.
We spend too much time and money on
some of these events when the
participation and success level is poor. The
fact is that the way to field better teams is
to give those teams more experience and
competition. This means we need to use
the FAI rules more or we need to abandon
those events where participation is too low
to justify the cost.
Can you imagine the success we would
have if we were to send the winner of the
Super Bowl to the World Cup? That would
be quite a spectacle, wouldn’t it? MA
’Til next month.
Dave Brown
AMA president
[email protected]
Let’s face it,
we march to the
beat of a different
drummer …
President’s Perspective
Dave Brown AMA president
Edition: Model Aviation - 2001/02
Page Numbers: 5
