Tom: Please don't insinuate that, "Gee we had the chance but we blew it". The failure of the Sport scale event is not the fault of the scale community, or the JR aerotow, or, (and I don't think I intimated this), the fault of the AMA or LSF. The program was of limited interest to scale flyers because it was not in the mainstream of what scale is about here in the U.S. Putting the onus on the Scale community for not supporting an event that they saw as contrived, and limited flying to three or four flights in one or two days, is a cheap shot. I can say this because I spent my free time (several hundred hours) trying to make the rules more palatable, I failed as much as any one, or group, take some responsibility with me instead of taking a self righteous attitude. Perhaps you did not intend it to come off that way, but it sounded that way.
Yes funflys are it today, which is no revelation; we have known this since Elmira 97" with 80 pilots showing up. Did any LSF officers ever attend an Elmira aerotow? I honestly don't know. But I invited them every year to help, watch, or see what we were doing. I never got a response, I know that. The scale movement has a life of its own and whether the LSF or AMA* is involved or not, it really is of no consequence now. Scale meetings will continue, and are quite content to exist as funflys, (it isn't a dirty word by the way) it affords more quality flying, more time to visit, and a relaxed atmosphere. The point is not really about whether pilots compete or not, but how, in the future, soaring will unite instead of divide. When you and or any one else starts sniping or blaming the scale community for the failure of the sport scale event, we should be asking instead, what is the solution? how do we integrate our agendas? After all the LSF is the SIG for all soaring right? It seems now you have your excuse to "write off" the scale community, since the LSF did all this work and "we" did not show up. Shame on us... Someday some folks may get something scale (competition) going at the grass roots level. It is beginning to happen with some interest in Scale aerotow cross country. There is also some interest among Power aerobatic pilots to try a soaring TOC type event. Scale is doing something that the old TD format is not doing, attracting new kinds of pilots to soaring from different disciplines. That should be one of the goals don't you think? Regards, john * The AMA of course will always be there as an insurer when events are sanctioned. As a CD I do realize it is one of the important fubctions, aside from organizing competition rules. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Kallevang [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 1:10 PM To: John Derstine; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RCSE] NATs and scale I was indeed saddened to see that Scale participation in the Nats boded But (and this is a BIG BUT) ... in 2003, through a lot of hard work and negotiation between LSF and AMA and others who care about Scale as a Nats event, two days were set aside for scale ... and they did not come. Rather most of the guys you would expect to see participate instead went to central Illinois for the first JR Aerotow, a month before the Nats. Let's be honest here, it costs a lot of time and money to ship these large beauties around the country (no checked SportTubes for these planes). And the event was a resounding success. But no one was going to send their planes home and then turn around and send them back a month later ... they made their choice and chose the fun fly over the Nats. And AMA said "So much for Scale Soaring at the Nats". How many of the scale events are being flown to AMA Sport Scale Saiplane rules? Just don't blame AMA and LSF for Scale's demise at the Nats, blame those who didn't attend and allowed it to be dropped under the tightening strictures of time and costs. Perhaps the scale boys should talk to the club hosting ScaleMasters or another big Scale meet about including a sailplane event instead of the Nats? ===== Tom (TK) Kallevang Wheeling, IL SOAR, LSF #303 Level V __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
