Ilike scale competition even though it scares the heck out of me to fly in front of judges. Ienjoy going to contests. Icant say I have seen any cheating at the contests Ihave been at. I think the rules are ok. The spirit of the rules is what counts. Builder of the model is trying to ensure that your static score is deserved I think. I dont think a day will come when you can buy an arf that will static in the high 90's out of the box. Considerable work would be required to bring one up to par. At that point you have probably put in your 51 percent or whatever. If you are worried about Dave Johnson selling me his albatros and me competing with it (hey it could happen) then you limit the number of times a particular model can be used in competition like they do at top gun. If there are to be rules changes they should rather be focused on making it more fun to participate in competition so that we grow the hobby rather than make the rules so complex nobody wants to bother. In that spirit Ithink we could open up a "run what you brung"class like DJ said. Judge the class for static just like in expert and fly it by the same flight rules. The only difference would be you can fly anything. Documentation required and all, no builder of the model rule. Lets try that and see what happens. You preserve the other classes and yet open up for experimentation. It would be an interesting test of the waters.

And if you dont want to compete then go to one of the many flyins around the country like the Hoosier Dawn Patrol this weekend (shameless plug). Enjoy the hobby with your buddies and dont worry about the cheaters, if they even really exist.

Dave Semeraro