ORIGINAL: rhklenke
ORIGINAL: Greg Wright
Are we talking about the jet world masters or the U.S Scale masters. If it is the JWM then all of the guys on the U.S team build and own there own planes and they are not sponsored it all comes out of there own pockets. From the building of the plane, to the flying they do it all. They even have to put out the money to travel to which ever country they are going to compete in. If you are talking about the U.S scale masters then that's a different story because they have two different classes. There is the expert class were the builder is the owner/pilot and in the team scale class there is the builder/owner & then the pilot is the other member of the team, but he can also help with the building of the plane with out sacrificing there score. I believe they also have a Pro/Am class were the rules are different and i'm not sure how that works.
I think you're confusing the U.S. Scale Masters with Top Gun. The Scale Masters has four classes, Expert, Team, Advanced, and Open. Top Gun has the Expert, Team, Masters and Unlimited classes as well as the Pro-Am class you are talking about that is sub-divided into two classes, Pro-Am Pro, and Pro-Am Sport. The WJM has two classes - based on weight, 13.5 kg and 20.0 kg.
You've got to read the rules themselves (all on the web) to see who/what qualifies for which class in either competition - they are not exactly the same.
There may be a few exceptions here and there, but the *vast* majority of scale competitors (U.S. Scale Masters, Top Gun, or WJM) pay their own way - they pay for the aircraft, flying costs, travel costs, etc. ''Sponsored pilots'' get a break on costs, but even they usually have to pay *something* for the equipment and I don't think any of them get travel allowances, etc...
Bob