Arch,

Based on your long-winded response I think you assumed that everyone thinks all aircraft should be weighed immediately after every flight. What I said was you have no evidence that the aircraft was over-weight on any flights but the 6th flight in this hypothetical scenario, and therefore only the one round should be zeroed.

I really don't care about the logistics of the Nats, and wasn't commenting on anything Nats-related (from what I read, neither was anyone else). What I care about is what you can prove about the weight of someone's airplane at this hypothetical contest. Maybe the airplane was damaged on landing in the 5th round and the repair made him overweight for the 6th. If the rules stated that ANY failure to make weight would disqualify all rounds, then fine, but they don't. The rules state: "Wherever practical, all aircraft should be weighed prior to the start of the contest. If weight is being enforced then all planes competing in that class must be weighed before the same round (round 1 or otherwise) for a baseline." (Emphasis added) Logistics aside, weight should be checked PRIOR to any flying being done, and probably one more time at some point in the contest. Again, I couldn't care less about the logistics of the Nats.

The only time the rule book mentions weighing after the contest has started and the penalty associated with it is here: "Random checks may be conducted at any time during the contest. An aircraft that has been damaged and repaired during the contest, after the initial weigh-in has been made, is subject to being reweighed. Repaired models failing the weight and/or size limits shall be disqualified for competition but recorded scores with the legal aircraft will stand." Now, unfortunately for the purposes of this argument the rule book does not say what happens upon failure to meet weight mid-contest in a "random check" but one can infer that the intent was to have it be the same as an aircraft that has been repaired since it followed immediately afterwards.

Simply put: you CANNOT and SHOULD NOT penalize a pilot for something you have no evidence of. If the decision is made to not weigh anyone until the very end, then you can only disqualify forward, not retroactively. If the choice is made to not weigh-in until a particular point in the contest, then the CD has taken it upon himself to assume that all aircraft met specifications at the start of the contest.