Control Line: Scale
Mike Gretz
The Garden State Circle Burners Club of New Jersey is one of the oldest and most respected control line model clubs in this country. They are the only club that I know of whose newsletter, the "Prop Wash," includes a steady Scale columnist. His name is Bill Reynolds, and what he wrote in the May issue of the "Scale Corner" bears repeating for the benefit of anyone who wants to fly in competition.
"Occasionally at contests you may find an individual who is less than pleased that their pride and joy entry did not place higher. Sometimes their frustrations are taken out on the judging — which seems to be a favorite pastime for many people at all sporting events. I am sure that one time or another all of us who ever followed any competitive event had some unfavorable comment to make about the officiating. At Scale contests, I have heard comments that range from a charge of incompetency, to favoritism due to 'home field advantage' if a member of a local club wins.
"I know of one instance at the last Nats where a control line scale aircraft was actually static judged and scored as an RC entry by the judges, who were more than embarrassed when it was brought to their attention that the wires sticking out the sides of the airplane were not radio antennas.
"There are honest mistakes made by all judges and there are probably even instances where cries of incompetency have foundation. But remember one thing, judging is not a science and for all of those who ever judged, I am sure that they felt a strong sense of responsibility and honestly reported as they saw it. The finer points of judging are usually passed on by those with more experience and maybe someday training sessions for judges within each AMA District could be arranged, or possibly some type of Judges Guide Book could be published by AMA to standardize these finer points.
"Just as many of us select a particular aircraft because of the impression the real aircraft has made on us, remember that judges may not share that same enthusiasm. Try as they may to be objective, a judge when viewing two aircraft of equal caliber may not help giving that extra nod to the aircraft that favors his fancy. After all, as stated previously, judging is not a science and when we compete, we are trying to create a favorable impression for that project we worked so long and hard on. I contend that if our basic rules are followed there are many of us who could become more competitive and spend less time grumbling about the human frailty of judges."
- Read, understand and follow the AMA Rule Book.
- Do the best you can in constructing your model. We all can't turn out a Dave Platt type masterpiece, but we should avoid shoddy workmanship and never settle with a "that's good enough" attitude when we know we haven't worked up to the limit of whatever talents we have.
- Spend some time in preparing proper documentation. Again, follow the Rule Book and remember that too much information and too many photographs (especially if not exactly depicting your model) could be as damaging as too little information.
- Most contests are won or lost in the air. There have been many a contest won against better airplanes by simply outflying them. This means practice to obtain the most points in each maneuver or option and be able to handle them in any weather condition. This also means to keep your flight box in top shape and spend time on the engine installation. A dependable and smooth running engine is critical during contests. Scale subjects needlessly suffer overheating engines, inaccessible needle valves and unreliable fuel plumbing. A little advance planning can almost totally eliminate a balky powerplant or a flameout when you needed a solid flight to take the trophy."
Bill Reynolds just made four points that reflect a lot of experience, insight, and common sense. I couldn't agree with him more if I had written them myself.
Bill mentioned the need for a Judges Guide. The most urgent type of guide needed, in my opinion, is one for judging the static portion of Sport Scale competition. Sport Scale judging is even less of a "science" than is Precision Scale since it is done totally through "the eyes of the beholder." It's not unheard of for the same model to get a 95 static score at one contest and a 75 at another. But I don't think that you can just call that poor judging. As Bill said, each and every judge was undoubtedly trying his best to call what he saw within the rules. Both the RC and CL classes of Sport Scale could benefit from the same Judges Guide since there is no difference between them in the static scoring portion.
What would be most useful and should be published would be for an enterprising and knowledgeable judge/competitor (or how about a committee from a scale-oriented club) to put down on paper some guidelines which describe what a judge should be looking for and how to allocate points accordingly. Perhaps what is needed is a systematic procedure a judge could follow to uniformly examine every model. Obviously, any guidelines should stay within the bounds of the existing AMA rules. The paper would then be submitted to the Scale Contest Board for consideration as a rules proposal. Once the Board has it, many more interested parties would come to life and start to provide more needed input. If the embryo proposal has some basic merit, it can be modified and built on during the rules cycle until it becomes a comprehensive document. Then, in later years, as experience dictates, more changes and additions can be made. The main ingredient that is lacking now is an instigator. Why couldn't it be YOU?
(Editor's note: Under current Contest Board procedures, any proposal which the originator hopes to have considered in the next rules change must be postmarked by September 1, 1980! See the long article on Contest Board procedures in the August issue of Competition Newsletter. RBM)
Hope to see you at the Nats!
PLEASE DON'T FLY NEAR POWERLINES.
Mike Gretz Box 162 Montezuma, IA 50171
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
