Control Line: Aerobatics
Wynn Paul
Every year at the National Model Airplane Championships, there is the same grumbling — usually divided into about six categories:
- "The judging is poor."
- "I didn't qualify because my circle was tough, and two other circles had only three good fliers; it was the fault of the drawing procedure for circle assignments."
- "The CL fliers get the worst pick on sites — look at Wilmington, for instance."
- "The same fliers always win."
- "We ought to have categories at the Nationals, like PAMPA categories."
- "We ought to do something about all of this."
Usually nothing is done about it, because everybody goes home and becomes a salesman, businessman, musician, factory worker, or a real pilot. What can we do about the above items?
One reason that sometimes we have questionable judging is that, every year, the Nationals or FAI event director has to beg, plead, bribe, and coerce people to be judges. Often we end up with someone judging who has had little experience and who might just watch for smoothness and good bottoms without regard to overall shape, overall size, intersections, and other fine points.
How come in RC they seem to have to turn away judges? Their maneuvers are so big and spread out that they have to hire a full-time masseuse to keep the judges' necks and backs limbered up. Maybe it is because there is a small core of dedicated people who enjoy working with judges around the country, establishing standards, having nice jackets with big patches on the back, and making the competition somewhat more comfortable for competitors. Also, the "big-time, star-trick, shirt-elite fliers" sometimes actually judge at the Nationals.
How many CL Precision Aerobatics FAI team members have you seen judging at the Nationals in the last five years? I can think of only one. Unfortunately, Precision Aerobatics (CL style) just doesn't have many who like to judge all the time, except maybe John Laws, who has judged at the last eight Nationals. There are very few others. What Stunt needs is some people who would like to administer judging and standards on a year-around basis.
Qualifying circles and seeding
Dick Byron made an impassioned public plea at the 1980 Nationals PAMPA banquet to change the method of selecting qualifying circles at the Nationals. He was displeased with the chance, or lottery, method of selecting qualifying circles.
Actually, the chances of qualifying are a lot better now than in earlier years; I have heard stories of the days when fliers put up a flight whenever they wanted to — while the judges sat in the sun and waited until 5:00 p.m. quitting time. I can remember my first years at the Nats when you actually signed up on the circle of your choice. I recall a now-retired New Jersey flier urging me to get on a particular circle because "It's an easy one," and I counted up eight fliers that could beat me.
I thought the institution of seeding a number of fliers was just great; it makes sense to spread out the top nine or dozen fliers over three or four circles. I still feel that if you aren't good enough to make the top five or six on your circle, then maybe you really shouldn't be all that broken up that you didn't qualify. I spent a couple of years watching guys fly in the finals that I had beat at local contests — boy, it burned me up too, but I finally beat them by practicing.
Byron states that he can seed all the fliers who entered, based on his compilation of scores over the past several years. Well, they keep rankings in tennis down to 60 or so. Maybe we could really do this in our hobby? Let's try it — and see what happens.
Site selection and representation
Control Line will always get the last pick for sites as long as we have few, weak voices fighting for us. As long as the CL events are split into several splinter groups we won't have a good pitch. What we need are some Al Babe, Bill Werwage, Dave Wallack, Phil Granderson, Gary Frost (and others) to actually say something to the Control Line Director of the Nationals. Maybe someone should even go to a meeting of the Nationals Executive Committee? For those of you who haven't had it crammed down your throats, notice that RC people run the show, that FAI Flight seems to be well organized, and that both of these interests are well represented on the Executive Council and the Nats Committee.
I won't comment on statements about the same people always winning, because most of that is either sour grapes or ignorance. While there may actually be 10 to 15 fliers capable of winning the Nationals, there will always be some unconscious bias toward established fliers.
Proposed two-class structure
The several years of PAMPA Categories at local contests have spoiled fliers so that now we recognize some of the definite advantages of having ability levels, such as promulgated by the RC Pattern folks. I am in favor of at least two categories for Open fliers at the Nationals. It could be done in the time span we now have: Monday through Saturday. The new category would be the "Sportsman Class."
Eligibility and general rules for Sportsman Class:
- Fliers eligible for this class should not have qualified in the Nationals for the past 10 years. In other words, it is for those who basically have not competed in the Nationals or who have never qualified.
- This would be relatively easy to control, as the past 10 years' records are readily available.
- There would be no appearance points in Sportsman.
Proposed schedule and advancement:
- Monday: Judges' instruction.
- Tuesday: Two circles for Juniors and Seniors, and two circles for Sportsman class. For Sportsman, there would be a limit of the first 30 to enter by the regular AMA Nats entries through the mail. If fewer than 30 pre-register, additional entries — up to a total of 30 — would be allowed to enter the Nats. From the two Sportsman circles, 12 would advance to Wednesday.
- Wednesday: Sportsman final, best two flights out of three.
- The Sportsman winner would not fly in the Walker Cup or Final-Finals — that would be one condition for entering the Sportsman class.
- Only the top five Sportsmen would be allowed to enter the Open qualifications; they would not have to pay a double entry fee.
- Thursday: Qualifying for Open flying.
- If three circles, then 15 advance to the Finals on Friday.
- If four circles, then 16 advance to Friday.
- Friday: Open Finals; the top five from Friday advance to the Final-Finals on Saturday, along with the Junior and Senior champions.
- Saturday: Final-Finals.
One advantage of dividing into two distinct classes is that the Open fliers would be urged to staff the judging of the Sportsman Class. Likewise, Sportsman Class fliers would be urged to help officiate the Open classes. Yes, I know that immediately Rabe, Werwage, and Baron would say, "How can someone who never has qualified in the Nats judge me?" Hopefully, we would not have to fill the entire ranks of the judges corps with Sportsmen, but have three to six come from that group. On the other hand, let us remember that turnabout is fair play and see just how many of the "stars" would actually take time to judge for the Sportsmen.
What to do next
To accomplish the above suggestions, we need a large number of people to write to PAMPA President Keith Trostle at:
Keith Trostle 10233 Peregrine Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Writers should support the idea of two distinct categories of Open fliers and volunteer to help at the Nationals. In my opinion, there seems to be some sort of stigma attached to our Precision Aerobatics event — either you are a flier or an official, and never the twain shall meet. In Free Flight, the "star" fliers time for a while — especially while they are waiting for better air — and in RC, fliers are always judging other classes. The RCers have an existing solid group of judges for the Nationals and FAI tryouts.
There you have it — those voices which were raised on high at the Wilmington Nationals and have been so quiet ever since. I have spoken out for your ideas. Now, you can decide on the wine, or you can bestir yourself long enough to sit down and really compose a letter. If you take some action, then maybe we can initiate some changes — not for 1981, but for 1982.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
