132 MODEL AVIATION
NEXT YEAR, 2005, marks AMA’s three-year rules cycle change
and implementation of AMA’s new competition rules. For the
majority of Scale Aerobatics competitors, that cycle, affecting
International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC), is significant. A
total of 16 new rules will be added to IMAC, and some of them
will completely change the way we fly our airplanes in
competition.
The IMAC board of directors has requested that we start flying
the most radical new rules in the 2004 season to get a jump on
learning them for when the new rules go into effect in 2005. To
shed light on some of the new changes and how they will alter our
contests, I talked with IMAC President Tom Wheeler.
Tom started in Radio Control (RC) in 1979, racing RC gas onroad
cars. Because his father was a fighter pilot, Tom had always
had an interest in aviation, and in 1991 he started flying RC
aircraft and soon learned that he was quite good at building. Tom
started building for others and has constructed more than 400
aircraft to date!
He began to gravitate toward Giant Scale, and in 1994 he
joined the International Aerobatic Club (IAC)—a full-scale
competition club—not to fly but to learn and to help with its
events. In 1996 Tom was elected assistant vice president for his
region in the International Miniature Aircraft Association
(IMAA). He began flying RC Scale Aerobatics and joined IMAC
in 1997. In 1999 he was named north central regional director. He
served a short stint as the national IMAC vice president in 2000
Mike Hurley, 11542 Decatur Ct., Westminster CO 80234; E-mail: [email protected]
RADIO CONTROL SCALE AEROBATICS
SA models’ and IMAC contests’ potential to attract large
audiences may help increase interest in model aviation.
Gathering with friends who are interested in the same type of
aerobatic challenge is part of the fun of flying IMAC.
Jason Noll and Garrett Morrison fly in formation at a demo.
The International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC) is the next
step from sport flying to competition.
and became IMAC president later that
year.
Since that time, IMAC has seen
significant changes and improvements. A
regional points system has been created to
award regional champions. Now there are
written descriptions to define each
classification (Basic, Sportsman, etc.).
There is a new catalog of maneuvers with
defined K (difficulty) factors and use
criteria defining what maneuvers are
acceptable for each class. The flying and
judging guidelines have been completely
rewritten.
A long-term plan has been put in place
to address a growing noise issue. The plan
has turned the tide and is continuing to
reduce that problem. And other significant
changes continue to unfold to keep IMAC
on track and in step with changes in
model-aircraft equipment and changes in
the full-scale aerobatic arena so that we
continue to fly scale aerobatics. Following
is our conversation.
MH: Tom, there are some significant,
almost radical, changes in this year’s rules
cycle. How did you and the board come up
with these changes and why are they so
sweeping?
TW: Our number-one statement at the
beginning of the rule book is that we’re a
miniature version of IAC. With that as our
guideline, it only makes sense that we’d
used their rule book. But the IAC rule
book can be modified annually and ours
can’t, so we had fallen behind. We had to
take a big step to catch up. Since we can
put in rules modifications only every three
years, we’ll always be behind.
MH: Briefly, what are some of the more
significant changes that will go into effect
in 2005?
TW: There are 16 new rules, but some are
multiples dealing with the same subject.
The most impacting are:
• New Freestyle judging criteria.
• The Intermediate class becomes official.
• No landing allowed between sequences
for refueling.
• The 180° 2,000 x 1,000-foot zoneless
box and positioning score.
• The figures catalog detailing acceptable
figures by class for Unknowns becomes
official.
• Scale outline must be within 10%.
Wingspan determines the scale and
everything needs to be within 10% of that.
• All K factors now will be the same as
FAI [Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale]. No more multiple factors
for the tailslide and the rollers.
• Eliminates the whole section on figure
centers, as that is no longer needed with
the zoneless box.
• Eliminates the double-jeopardy penalty
for sequence breaks and added figures. In
the past if you made a mistake, say you
came out of a Humpty Bump inverted
instead of upright, you’d zero the Humpty
and the next maneuver you were going
into. Now you’ll just zero the maneuver
where you made the error.
• Eliminates the 10° cheat on tailslides. In
the past, pilots were allowed to lean their
airplanes up to 10° forward or backward to
help it fall into the tailslide. This is no
longer permitted.
MH: Explain the zoneless box and
positioning scores. How did you come up
with them and why are they good for
IMAC?
TW: The zoneless box was first
introduced in CIVA and IAC in 1999.
[CIVA (Commission Internationale de
Voltige Aerienne) is the worldwide
commission for Aerobatics under the
auspices of FAI.] The reasons they
incorporated it were to help pilots reduce
the size of the box. Even full-scale
unlimited pilots do not have the same
power-to-weight ratios we do, and their
problem is that if they fly across the box
they lose a lot of energy for their next
figure. They need everything they can get.
But with eliminating the zones there
had to be some other determination of how
well figures were placed within the box, so
the positioning score was the way to do it.
Basically it measures how the entire
sequence is centered in the aerobatic box.
Figures should be placed so that judges
can see how round your loop is, for
example. Also, it’s difficult to judge a loop
if it’s too close to you.
The zoneless box now makes the entire
sequence a flowing event so it’s no longer
just individual figures flown precisely but
individual figures flown in a symphony of
presentation. We’re looking for consistent
spacing between maneuvers and figures
and also within the figures. It’s still a
difficult thing to appreciate for someone
who hasn’t witnessed flying zoneless
sequences.
We’ve had a few pilots here in the
North Central Region get together and fly
the sequences. These guys didn’t know
anything about the zoneless box, but it
became quite clear to them after just a
couple of flights what was expected and
how these sequences look. The patterns
are, in fact, much, much smaller than any
sequences we’ve had before. It can be a
real advantage to a pilot too; we used to
have to fly from one end of the box to the
other, and that was not a free pass. That
was an opportunity for downgrade. And of
course it increases the time it takes to fly
the sequence.
With the zoneless box you’re moving
from one figure to a pause with straightand-
level flight. You might do a three
count before you start the next figure. You
can figure out which two figures might be
the farthest left and farthest right that you
have to go. Then you fly everything else
inside that in a balanced way, and as long
as you center the whole sequence in front
March 2004 133
A lineup of large Scale Aerobatics airplanes in Mitchell,
Nebraska, wait their turn to take a flight.
Tom Wheeler is the current president of IMAC.
of you, your positioning score should be
high.
And if by chance it’s a really windy
day and your whole sequence is getting
blown downwind, a judge can determine
the entire sequence was maybe 20° left of
center. As a judge, if the farthest figure on
the left was roughly 60° left of me and the
farthest figure on the right was on an
angle of roughly 40° to me, there’s a 20°
spread, which is really a 10° error. In
other words, if you were to push the
sequence over 10°, you’d be centered. So
if everything else looks good, that might
be a 1-point downgrade.
I don’t envision the downgrades being
too great. I can’t see how you could zero
somebody for positioning as long as the
sequence was flown in the correct order
and you stayed within the box. Even if
everything was flown in the right-hand
box and you said it was 90°, that’s still
only a 4.5 deduction.
I’m not saying that’s exactly the way
judges will judge because judges will
apply some of their own criteria. And as
long as the judge is consistent between
pilots in a round it’s really not going to
make any difference. And the positioning
score is a very minor K factor. Primarily, I
see it differentiating between the top
pilots more than people farther down the
board who may make errors in flying each
individual figure.
For more information about position
scoring, go to the IAC Web site at
http://members.iac.org/knowns/knowns20
04/2004_rules_proposals_final.pdf. There
is a 12-page PDF document about the
rules changes. On page 11 there’s a good
description of the positioning score.
IMAC’s intent is to follow this
philosophy.
MH: The Freestyle scoring represents
another substantial change. How will it be
done?
TW: Freestyle is also going along with
the scoring system CIVA and IAC
implemented a couple of years ago. As
with IAC and CIVA, Freestyle is an
optional event, but in those organizations
it’s only open to Advanced and Unlimited
pilots for safety reasons. Our new criteria
for Freestyle is essentially a copy of theirs
[but open to all pilots].
It further defines for a judge the type
of figures [not the type of figure, but what
to look for in a routine] and what is
expected of the aircraft and now assigns K
factors for different sections of the
Freestyle score. In the past, the Freestyle
rules were only a couple of paragraphs,
and now they’re more substantial.
Freestyle scoring is broken down into
technical merit, which is 90K. Within that
90K there’s 20K for flight envelope
utilization, or exploring what the aircraft
can do. Then 40 of the 90K is for
execution of those maneuvers, or how
well the pilot is in control. Then 30 of the
90K is the variety of different axes and
flight paths.
Then there’s 90K for artistic
impression, and 50K has to do with the
flow of the figures, contrasting periods of
graceful and dynamic maneuvers. Then
40K of that is orientation and optimal
position; it’s basically presenting your
sequence so that the judge can best see
what you’re doing.
Then there’s 20K for positioning, and
that’s symmetry of the box. It’s been used
the last couple of years at the TOC
[Tournament of Champions] and the
Masters. [Noted judge] Fred Johnson
started using this a couple of years ago,
pulling from the CIVA criteria, and it’s
been fairly effective.
MH: My understanding is that you’d like
CDs [Contest Directors] to use the 2005
criteria in their 2004 contests utilizing an
AMA waiver. How can a CD get that
done?
TW: It’s really quite simple. When filling
out the forms for their sanctions, CDs
simply state that they want to apply the
“zoneless box” rules. Steve Kaluf, AMA
Technical Director, knows exactly which
rules apply to the zoneless box, and they
134 MODEL AVIATION
will be granted. There’s no need to
provide any more detail.
MH: Does that include the Freestyle
scoring and all the other rules changes?
TW: Those would be separate. For now I’d
just say use the zoneless box, and if you
want to use the new Freestyle criteria, state
that as well. But all the other rule changes
are too detailed for a pilot or judge to know
this year, even though they’ve been out
there.
MH: Where can people go to read more
detail about the 2005 rules changes?
TW: There’s a summary of the rules on the
AMA Web site [http://modelaircraft.
org] under “Competition,” then “Rules
Proposals.” There is also more detail on the
IMAC Web site.
MH: There’s talk every year about
restricting the size of airplanes in Basic
class.
TW: On the surface that sounds like a
logical thing to do, but I think in reality it
would be more restrictive than what we
have right now, which is allowing anybody
to fly. The whole idea behind Basic is that
it’s an open class and you can bring any
airplane you want. If you restrict it, then
you’ve specialized that class and it becomes
about trying to find the best equipment that
fits within those guidelines. And that’s not
going to do any good for somebody who
just wants to give IMAC a try.
MH: What are some ideas under
consideration for the future in IMAC?
TW: Next year we’ll probably be accepting
bids from people who would want to host a
national IMAC championship. We’ll still
have the AMA Nationals, of course, but
we’re considering also some kind of
revolving, open participation, national
event. Those who want to compete should
be able to, rather than restricting it to
invitation only. MA
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/03
Page Numbers: 132,133,134
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/03
Page Numbers: 132,133,134
132 MODEL AVIATION
NEXT YEAR, 2005, marks AMA’s three-year rules cycle change
and implementation of AMA’s new competition rules. For the
majority of Scale Aerobatics competitors, that cycle, affecting
International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC), is significant. A
total of 16 new rules will be added to IMAC, and some of them
will completely change the way we fly our airplanes in
competition.
The IMAC board of directors has requested that we start flying
the most radical new rules in the 2004 season to get a jump on
learning them for when the new rules go into effect in 2005. To
shed light on some of the new changes and how they will alter our
contests, I talked with IMAC President Tom Wheeler.
Tom started in Radio Control (RC) in 1979, racing RC gas onroad
cars. Because his father was a fighter pilot, Tom had always
had an interest in aviation, and in 1991 he started flying RC
aircraft and soon learned that he was quite good at building. Tom
started building for others and has constructed more than 400
aircraft to date!
He began to gravitate toward Giant Scale, and in 1994 he
joined the International Aerobatic Club (IAC)—a full-scale
competition club—not to fly but to learn and to help with its
events. In 1996 Tom was elected assistant vice president for his
region in the International Miniature Aircraft Association
(IMAA). He began flying RC Scale Aerobatics and joined IMAC
in 1997. In 1999 he was named north central regional director. He
served a short stint as the national IMAC vice president in 2000
Mike Hurley, 11542 Decatur Ct., Westminster CO 80234; E-mail: [email protected]
RADIO CONTROL SCALE AEROBATICS
SA models’ and IMAC contests’ potential to attract large
audiences may help increase interest in model aviation.
Gathering with friends who are interested in the same type of
aerobatic challenge is part of the fun of flying IMAC.
Jason Noll and Garrett Morrison fly in formation at a demo.
The International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC) is the next
step from sport flying to competition.
and became IMAC president later that
year.
Since that time, IMAC has seen
significant changes and improvements. A
regional points system has been created to
award regional champions. Now there are
written descriptions to define each
classification (Basic, Sportsman, etc.).
There is a new catalog of maneuvers with
defined K (difficulty) factors and use
criteria defining what maneuvers are
acceptable for each class. The flying and
judging guidelines have been completely
rewritten.
A long-term plan has been put in place
to address a growing noise issue. The plan
has turned the tide and is continuing to
reduce that problem. And other significant
changes continue to unfold to keep IMAC
on track and in step with changes in
model-aircraft equipment and changes in
the full-scale aerobatic arena so that we
continue to fly scale aerobatics. Following
is our conversation.
MH: Tom, there are some significant,
almost radical, changes in this year’s rules
cycle. How did you and the board come up
with these changes and why are they so
sweeping?
TW: Our number-one statement at the
beginning of the rule book is that we’re a
miniature version of IAC. With that as our
guideline, it only makes sense that we’d
used their rule book. But the IAC rule
book can be modified annually and ours
can’t, so we had fallen behind. We had to
take a big step to catch up. Since we can
put in rules modifications only every three
years, we’ll always be behind.
MH: Briefly, what are some of the more
significant changes that will go into effect
in 2005?
TW: There are 16 new rules, but some are
multiples dealing with the same subject.
The most impacting are:
• New Freestyle judging criteria.
• The Intermediate class becomes official.
• No landing allowed between sequences
for refueling.
• The 180° 2,000 x 1,000-foot zoneless
box and positioning score.
• The figures catalog detailing acceptable
figures by class for Unknowns becomes
official.
• Scale outline must be within 10%.
Wingspan determines the scale and
everything needs to be within 10% of that.
• All K factors now will be the same as
FAI [Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale]. No more multiple factors
for the tailslide and the rollers.
• Eliminates the whole section on figure
centers, as that is no longer needed with
the zoneless box.
• Eliminates the double-jeopardy penalty
for sequence breaks and added figures. In
the past if you made a mistake, say you
came out of a Humpty Bump inverted
instead of upright, you’d zero the Humpty
and the next maneuver you were going
into. Now you’ll just zero the maneuver
where you made the error.
• Eliminates the 10° cheat on tailslides. In
the past, pilots were allowed to lean their
airplanes up to 10° forward or backward to
help it fall into the tailslide. This is no
longer permitted.
MH: Explain the zoneless box and
positioning scores. How did you come up
with them and why are they good for
IMAC?
TW: The zoneless box was first
introduced in CIVA and IAC in 1999.
[CIVA (Commission Internationale de
Voltige Aerienne) is the worldwide
commission for Aerobatics under the
auspices of FAI.] The reasons they
incorporated it were to help pilots reduce
the size of the box. Even full-scale
unlimited pilots do not have the same
power-to-weight ratios we do, and their
problem is that if they fly across the box
they lose a lot of energy for their next
figure. They need everything they can get.
But with eliminating the zones there
had to be some other determination of how
well figures were placed within the box, so
the positioning score was the way to do it.
Basically it measures how the entire
sequence is centered in the aerobatic box.
Figures should be placed so that judges
can see how round your loop is, for
example. Also, it’s difficult to judge a loop
if it’s too close to you.
The zoneless box now makes the entire
sequence a flowing event so it’s no longer
just individual figures flown precisely but
individual figures flown in a symphony of
presentation. We’re looking for consistent
spacing between maneuvers and figures
and also within the figures. It’s still a
difficult thing to appreciate for someone
who hasn’t witnessed flying zoneless
sequences.
We’ve had a few pilots here in the
North Central Region get together and fly
the sequences. These guys didn’t know
anything about the zoneless box, but it
became quite clear to them after just a
couple of flights what was expected and
how these sequences look. The patterns
are, in fact, much, much smaller than any
sequences we’ve had before. It can be a
real advantage to a pilot too; we used to
have to fly from one end of the box to the
other, and that was not a free pass. That
was an opportunity for downgrade. And of
course it increases the time it takes to fly
the sequence.
With the zoneless box you’re moving
from one figure to a pause with straightand-
level flight. You might do a three
count before you start the next figure. You
can figure out which two figures might be
the farthest left and farthest right that you
have to go. Then you fly everything else
inside that in a balanced way, and as long
as you center the whole sequence in front
March 2004 133
A lineup of large Scale Aerobatics airplanes in Mitchell,
Nebraska, wait their turn to take a flight.
Tom Wheeler is the current president of IMAC.
of you, your positioning score should be
high.
And if by chance it’s a really windy
day and your whole sequence is getting
blown downwind, a judge can determine
the entire sequence was maybe 20° left of
center. As a judge, if the farthest figure on
the left was roughly 60° left of me and the
farthest figure on the right was on an
angle of roughly 40° to me, there’s a 20°
spread, which is really a 10° error. In
other words, if you were to push the
sequence over 10°, you’d be centered. So
if everything else looks good, that might
be a 1-point downgrade.
I don’t envision the downgrades being
too great. I can’t see how you could zero
somebody for positioning as long as the
sequence was flown in the correct order
and you stayed within the box. Even if
everything was flown in the right-hand
box and you said it was 90°, that’s still
only a 4.5 deduction.
I’m not saying that’s exactly the way
judges will judge because judges will
apply some of their own criteria. And as
long as the judge is consistent between
pilots in a round it’s really not going to
make any difference. And the positioning
score is a very minor K factor. Primarily, I
see it differentiating between the top
pilots more than people farther down the
board who may make errors in flying each
individual figure.
For more information about position
scoring, go to the IAC Web site at
http://members.iac.org/knowns/knowns20
04/2004_rules_proposals_final.pdf. There
is a 12-page PDF document about the
rules changes. On page 11 there’s a good
description of the positioning score.
IMAC’s intent is to follow this
philosophy.
MH: The Freestyle scoring represents
another substantial change. How will it be
done?
TW: Freestyle is also going along with
the scoring system CIVA and IAC
implemented a couple of years ago. As
with IAC and CIVA, Freestyle is an
optional event, but in those organizations
it’s only open to Advanced and Unlimited
pilots for safety reasons. Our new criteria
for Freestyle is essentially a copy of theirs
[but open to all pilots].
It further defines for a judge the type
of figures [not the type of figure, but what
to look for in a routine] and what is
expected of the aircraft and now assigns K
factors for different sections of the
Freestyle score. In the past, the Freestyle
rules were only a couple of paragraphs,
and now they’re more substantial.
Freestyle scoring is broken down into
technical merit, which is 90K. Within that
90K there’s 20K for flight envelope
utilization, or exploring what the aircraft
can do. Then 40 of the 90K is for
execution of those maneuvers, or how
well the pilot is in control. Then 30 of the
90K is the variety of different axes and
flight paths.
Then there’s 90K for artistic
impression, and 50K has to do with the
flow of the figures, contrasting periods of
graceful and dynamic maneuvers. Then
40K of that is orientation and optimal
position; it’s basically presenting your
sequence so that the judge can best see
what you’re doing.
Then there’s 20K for positioning, and
that’s symmetry of the box. It’s been used
the last couple of years at the TOC
[Tournament of Champions] and the
Masters. [Noted judge] Fred Johnson
started using this a couple of years ago,
pulling from the CIVA criteria, and it’s
been fairly effective.
MH: My understanding is that you’d like
CDs [Contest Directors] to use the 2005
criteria in their 2004 contests utilizing an
AMA waiver. How can a CD get that
done?
TW: It’s really quite simple. When filling
out the forms for their sanctions, CDs
simply state that they want to apply the
“zoneless box” rules. Steve Kaluf, AMA
Technical Director, knows exactly which
rules apply to the zoneless box, and they
134 MODEL AVIATION
will be granted. There’s no need to
provide any more detail.
MH: Does that include the Freestyle
scoring and all the other rules changes?
TW: Those would be separate. For now I’d
just say use the zoneless box, and if you
want to use the new Freestyle criteria, state
that as well. But all the other rule changes
are too detailed for a pilot or judge to know
this year, even though they’ve been out
there.
MH: Where can people go to read more
detail about the 2005 rules changes?
TW: There’s a summary of the rules on the
AMA Web site [http://modelaircraft.
org] under “Competition,” then “Rules
Proposals.” There is also more detail on the
IMAC Web site.
MH: There’s talk every year about
restricting the size of airplanes in Basic
class.
TW: On the surface that sounds like a
logical thing to do, but I think in reality it
would be more restrictive than what we
have right now, which is allowing anybody
to fly. The whole idea behind Basic is that
it’s an open class and you can bring any
airplane you want. If you restrict it, then
you’ve specialized that class and it becomes
about trying to find the best equipment that
fits within those guidelines. And that’s not
going to do any good for somebody who
just wants to give IMAC a try.
MH: What are some ideas under
consideration for the future in IMAC?
TW: Next year we’ll probably be accepting
bids from people who would want to host a
national IMAC championship. We’ll still
have the AMA Nationals, of course, but
we’re considering also some kind of
revolving, open participation, national
event. Those who want to compete should
be able to, rather than restricting it to
invitation only. MA
Edition: Model Aviation - 2004/03
Page Numbers: 132,133,134
132 MODEL AVIATION
NEXT YEAR, 2005, marks AMA’s three-year rules cycle change
and implementation of AMA’s new competition rules. For the
majority of Scale Aerobatics competitors, that cycle, affecting
International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC), is significant. A
total of 16 new rules will be added to IMAC, and some of them
will completely change the way we fly our airplanes in
competition.
The IMAC board of directors has requested that we start flying
the most radical new rules in the 2004 season to get a jump on
learning them for when the new rules go into effect in 2005. To
shed light on some of the new changes and how they will alter our
contests, I talked with IMAC President Tom Wheeler.
Tom started in Radio Control (RC) in 1979, racing RC gas onroad
cars. Because his father was a fighter pilot, Tom had always
had an interest in aviation, and in 1991 he started flying RC
aircraft and soon learned that he was quite good at building. Tom
started building for others and has constructed more than 400
aircraft to date!
He began to gravitate toward Giant Scale, and in 1994 he
joined the International Aerobatic Club (IAC)—a full-scale
competition club—not to fly but to learn and to help with its
events. In 1996 Tom was elected assistant vice president for his
region in the International Miniature Aircraft Association
(IMAA). He began flying RC Scale Aerobatics and joined IMAC
in 1997. In 1999 he was named north central regional director. He
served a short stint as the national IMAC vice president in 2000
Mike Hurley, 11542 Decatur Ct., Westminster CO 80234; E-mail: [email protected]
RADIO CONTROL SCALE AEROBATICS
SA models’ and IMAC contests’ potential to attract large
audiences may help increase interest in model aviation.
Gathering with friends who are interested in the same type of
aerobatic challenge is part of the fun of flying IMAC.
Jason Noll and Garrett Morrison fly in formation at a demo.
The International Miniature Aerobatic Club (IMAC) is the next
step from sport flying to competition.
and became IMAC president later that
year.
Since that time, IMAC has seen
significant changes and improvements. A
regional points system has been created to
award regional champions. Now there are
written descriptions to define each
classification (Basic, Sportsman, etc.).
There is a new catalog of maneuvers with
defined K (difficulty) factors and use
criteria defining what maneuvers are
acceptable for each class. The flying and
judging guidelines have been completely
rewritten.
A long-term plan has been put in place
to address a growing noise issue. The plan
has turned the tide and is continuing to
reduce that problem. And other significant
changes continue to unfold to keep IMAC
on track and in step with changes in
model-aircraft equipment and changes in
the full-scale aerobatic arena so that we
continue to fly scale aerobatics. Following
is our conversation.
MH: Tom, there are some significant,
almost radical, changes in this year’s rules
cycle. How did you and the board come up
with these changes and why are they so
sweeping?
TW: Our number-one statement at the
beginning of the rule book is that we’re a
miniature version of IAC. With that as our
guideline, it only makes sense that we’d
used their rule book. But the IAC rule
book can be modified annually and ours
can’t, so we had fallen behind. We had to
take a big step to catch up. Since we can
put in rules modifications only every three
years, we’ll always be behind.
MH: Briefly, what are some of the more
significant changes that will go into effect
in 2005?
TW: There are 16 new rules, but some are
multiples dealing with the same subject.
The most impacting are:
• New Freestyle judging criteria.
• The Intermediate class becomes official.
• No landing allowed between sequences
for refueling.
• The 180° 2,000 x 1,000-foot zoneless
box and positioning score.
• The figures catalog detailing acceptable
figures by class for Unknowns becomes
official.
• Scale outline must be within 10%.
Wingspan determines the scale and
everything needs to be within 10% of that.
• All K factors now will be the same as
FAI [Fédération Aéronautique
Internationale]. No more multiple factors
for the tailslide and the rollers.
• Eliminates the whole section on figure
centers, as that is no longer needed with
the zoneless box.
• Eliminates the double-jeopardy penalty
for sequence breaks and added figures. In
the past if you made a mistake, say you
came out of a Humpty Bump inverted
instead of upright, you’d zero the Humpty
and the next maneuver you were going
into. Now you’ll just zero the maneuver
where you made the error.
• Eliminates the 10° cheat on tailslides. In
the past, pilots were allowed to lean their
airplanes up to 10° forward or backward to
help it fall into the tailslide. This is no
longer permitted.
MH: Explain the zoneless box and
positioning scores. How did you come up
with them and why are they good for
IMAC?
TW: The zoneless box was first
introduced in CIVA and IAC in 1999.
[CIVA (Commission Internationale de
Voltige Aerienne) is the worldwide
commission for Aerobatics under the
auspices of FAI.] The reasons they
incorporated it were to help pilots reduce
the size of the box. Even full-scale
unlimited pilots do not have the same
power-to-weight ratios we do, and their
problem is that if they fly across the box
they lose a lot of energy for their next
figure. They need everything they can get.
But with eliminating the zones there
had to be some other determination of how
well figures were placed within the box, so
the positioning score was the way to do it.
Basically it measures how the entire
sequence is centered in the aerobatic box.
Figures should be placed so that judges
can see how round your loop is, for
example. Also, it’s difficult to judge a loop
if it’s too close to you.
The zoneless box now makes the entire
sequence a flowing event so it’s no longer
just individual figures flown precisely but
individual figures flown in a symphony of
presentation. We’re looking for consistent
spacing between maneuvers and figures
and also within the figures. It’s still a
difficult thing to appreciate for someone
who hasn’t witnessed flying zoneless
sequences.
We’ve had a few pilots here in the
North Central Region get together and fly
the sequences. These guys didn’t know
anything about the zoneless box, but it
became quite clear to them after just a
couple of flights what was expected and
how these sequences look. The patterns
are, in fact, much, much smaller than any
sequences we’ve had before. It can be a
real advantage to a pilot too; we used to
have to fly from one end of the box to the
other, and that was not a free pass. That
was an opportunity for downgrade. And of
course it increases the time it takes to fly
the sequence.
With the zoneless box you’re moving
from one figure to a pause with straightand-
level flight. You might do a three
count before you start the next figure. You
can figure out which two figures might be
the farthest left and farthest right that you
have to go. Then you fly everything else
inside that in a balanced way, and as long
as you center the whole sequence in front
March 2004 133
A lineup of large Scale Aerobatics airplanes in Mitchell,
Nebraska, wait their turn to take a flight.
Tom Wheeler is the current president of IMAC.
of you, your positioning score should be
high.
And if by chance it’s a really windy
day and your whole sequence is getting
blown downwind, a judge can determine
the entire sequence was maybe 20° left of
center. As a judge, if the farthest figure on
the left was roughly 60° left of me and the
farthest figure on the right was on an
angle of roughly 40° to me, there’s a 20°
spread, which is really a 10° error. In
other words, if you were to push the
sequence over 10°, you’d be centered. So
if everything else looks good, that might
be a 1-point downgrade.
I don’t envision the downgrades being
too great. I can’t see how you could zero
somebody for positioning as long as the
sequence was flown in the correct order
and you stayed within the box. Even if
everything was flown in the right-hand
box and you said it was 90°, that’s still
only a 4.5 deduction.
I’m not saying that’s exactly the way
judges will judge because judges will
apply some of their own criteria. And as
long as the judge is consistent between
pilots in a round it’s really not going to
make any difference. And the positioning
score is a very minor K factor. Primarily, I
see it differentiating between the top
pilots more than people farther down the
board who may make errors in flying each
individual figure.
For more information about position
scoring, go to the IAC Web site at
http://members.iac.org/knowns/knowns20
04/2004_rules_proposals_final.pdf. There
is a 12-page PDF document about the
rules changes. On page 11 there’s a good
description of the positioning score.
IMAC’s intent is to follow this
philosophy.
MH: The Freestyle scoring represents
another substantial change. How will it be
done?
TW: Freestyle is also going along with
the scoring system CIVA and IAC
implemented a couple of years ago. As
with IAC and CIVA, Freestyle is an
optional event, but in those organizations
it’s only open to Advanced and Unlimited
pilots for safety reasons. Our new criteria
for Freestyle is essentially a copy of theirs
[but open to all pilots].
It further defines for a judge the type
of figures [not the type of figure, but what
to look for in a routine] and what is
expected of the aircraft and now assigns K
factors for different sections of the
Freestyle score. In the past, the Freestyle
rules were only a couple of paragraphs,
and now they’re more substantial.
Freestyle scoring is broken down into
technical merit, which is 90K. Within that
90K there’s 20K for flight envelope
utilization, or exploring what the aircraft
can do. Then 40 of the 90K is for
execution of those maneuvers, or how
well the pilot is in control. Then 30 of the
90K is the variety of different axes and
flight paths.
Then there’s 90K for artistic
impression, and 50K has to do with the
flow of the figures, contrasting periods of
graceful and dynamic maneuvers. Then
40K of that is orientation and optimal
position; it’s basically presenting your
sequence so that the judge can best see
what you’re doing.
Then there’s 20K for positioning, and
that’s symmetry of the box. It’s been used
the last couple of years at the TOC
[Tournament of Champions] and the
Masters. [Noted judge] Fred Johnson
started using this a couple of years ago,
pulling from the CIVA criteria, and it’s
been fairly effective.
MH: My understanding is that you’d like
CDs [Contest Directors] to use the 2005
criteria in their 2004 contests utilizing an
AMA waiver. How can a CD get that
done?
TW: It’s really quite simple. When filling
out the forms for their sanctions, CDs
simply state that they want to apply the
“zoneless box” rules. Steve Kaluf, AMA
Technical Director, knows exactly which
rules apply to the zoneless box, and they
134 MODEL AVIATION
will be granted. There’s no need to
provide any more detail.
MH: Does that include the Freestyle
scoring and all the other rules changes?
TW: Those would be separate. For now I’d
just say use the zoneless box, and if you
want to use the new Freestyle criteria, state
that as well. But all the other rule changes
are too detailed for a pilot or judge to know
this year, even though they’ve been out
there.
MH: Where can people go to read more
detail about the 2005 rules changes?
TW: There’s a summary of the rules on the
AMA Web site [http://modelaircraft.
org] under “Competition,” then “Rules
Proposals.” There is also more detail on the
IMAC Web site.
MH: There’s talk every year about
restricting the size of airplanes in Basic
class.
TW: On the surface that sounds like a
logical thing to do, but I think in reality it
would be more restrictive than what we
have right now, which is allowing anybody
to fly. The whole idea behind Basic is that
it’s an open class and you can bring any
airplane you want. If you restrict it, then
you’ve specialized that class and it becomes
about trying to find the best equipment that
fits within those guidelines. And that’s not
going to do any good for somebody who
just wants to give IMAC a try.
MH: What are some ideas under
consideration for the future in IMAC?
TW: Next year we’ll probably be accepting
bids from people who would want to host a
national IMAC championship. We’ll still
have the AMA Nationals, of course, but
we’re considering also some kind of
revolving, open participation, national
event. Those who want to compete should
be able to, rather than restricting it to
invitation only. MA
