Hi Cuck,

Yep you are right. There already is an open class. Ihad a look at the results from the last couple of Nats and it looks like they combined fun scale and open. At least the scores are reported that way. I guess they static scored the few open competitors like fun scale, 5 pts for a picture of the plane. There always seems to be quite a few people flying fun scale. Ialso had a look at the scalemasters site. They have an open class also but there were only a few entries in open as SM. At the nats the fun scale class has had the most contestants in the years Ihave been going. Scale Masters only had about 4 guys in open. There were more team scale entries than that.

Idont know what that says about the BOMrule. The absence of it doesnt seem to stimulate competition after all. Guess Iwas wrong. Judging from the numbers I see at the Nats it appears that facing the static judge is what drives most pilots away. There is always a large turn out for fun scale that seems to support that theory. The fun scale guys do seem to be having a blast. I guess they have less of an emotional attachment to their planes and enjoy flying when they dont have the same amount of time invested as someone in expert. I dont know. Ithink fun scale has been good for the hobby. Many of the guys flying fun scale are not flying any other class. Some of the other classes do also fly something in fun scale.