hogflyer

While I can’t participate in this years contest (I’m moving to Wichita next week and all my modeling supplies will be stuck in St. Louis for a couple of months), I do have some thoughts on the current discussion. One thing about scaling down an existing design – while you may retain the looks of the original design, the actual structure will have to be completely designed for it to fly 1/2A successfully – just require the contestant to design their own internal structure and prove they didn’t take a set of large plans to Kinko’s copy machine (like a picture of the contestant with drawing instruments or computer at hand showing them designing the model (or the Scouts Honor method). Also, what about someone who wants to enter Gee Bee R-1? Since there have been many designs of this plane in numerous scales, could it be argued that it’s just a scale down of another design? Henry Haffke has designed several versions of the Gee Bee aircraft in different scales. Looking at the plans listing AMA has, there are over 40 plans shown for the various Gee Bee variants. How about the multitude of Extra’s, Yak’s, or Ultimate Bipes, etc. out these days in all sizes – they will all have similar internal layout so should that be eliminated since it’s been modeled in a larger scale and can be considered just a scale down of an existing design?

One last thought - how about having the plans for the designs entered be available for others to build? There’re been several planes I’ve seen from previous contest that I’d like to build. That may get more scratch building going and let the less experienced builders learn even more with different building styles and see how others have developed their structures, hopefully planting the seed so they can develop their own design for a future contest.