I am actually not quite sure what Chris is so upset about but it sounds like
he may not have a clear picture of what the change to the HL rules was all
about. I will attempt to clear this up.
The original HL rules required a contestant to get the contest director's
approval prior to switching to a backup model. The original rules also did
not allow the contestant to go back to his primary model later in the
contest should he be able to repair the model between rounds.
Every hand launch contest that I fly in including the IHLGF allows for free
substitution of models without prior approval of the contest director. This
is what makes sense for a HL contest since there is simply no time to hunt
down the contest director and get approval to switch planes while the round
clock is running. The change in the AMA NATS HL rules addresses this issue
and brings the NATS more in line with other top level HL events. You are no
longer required to get prior approval to switch planes and you are allowed
to switch back to the primary plane later in the contest.
What Chris and many others could not possibly know is how this change came
about. It was through the initiative and major efforts of Tom Kiesling that
this positive change has been made. In the past couple weeks there has been
a dialog taking place between Tom, AMA officials and some other interested
parties regarding this change. The AMA was very helpful, understanding and
cooperative throughout. They had certain procedures that they were required
to follow and had to fit the change into the existing AMA rule book
structure. Part of that structure was the requirement to publicly post any
rule book deviations prior to the contest. There are other, smaller
adjustments to the HL rules that many HL contestants would like to see.
These changes are currently being discussed and may soon be addressed in an
actual rule book amendment. For now I would like to publicly thank Tom
Kiesling, Steve Kaluf, Ed Franz, and the other AMA officials involved for
their efforts to improve the AMA NATS HL rules. They did a great job of
clearing up the primary problems with the rules on short notice. I am sure
that their continued efforts in the coming months will further refine the
rules and bring them up to date with other major HL events and keep pace
with HL development that has occurred in DLG over recent years.
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. Email sent from web based email
such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
