ORIGINAL: Art ARRO
Andy and All,
The JWM does have a Team Trophy for the highest scoring pilot and constructor (builder). Entries in this class do not receive a Designer Bonus of 100 points max, equally divided between Vintage Jet and Originality of their entry. The Builder of the Model (BOM) rule was dispensed with in 2008 as there was no way to enforcing this. This allowed Teams, of a builder and a pilot, to compete against others but at a 100 point loss across a total score of 3000 points, split 1500 for static and 1500 for the flying portion of the competition. Any ''deep pockets'' Team would still have to excel at the flight portion to win against the other Teams.
I think you may be confusing the Team competiton with the Nations Trophy where the top 3 combined (static and flight) scorers for any country are totaled and counted against the top 3 of all the other countries for their respective weight classes.
If you feel that the current JWM system in unfair, then feel free to submit a rules change prposal to the IJMC for consideration. Just ensure that any proposals can be enforced. Frankly, I don't see how a monetary limit can be enforced in building a jet model for this competition.
It is true that Tiano's Top Gun Invitational scale competition has thrived over 25 years but he constantly fine tunes the rules for the entrants. The Pro-Am classes were a big boost to the entries and I feel his Master class will prosper also. However, Frank does not have to reach rule consensus across multiple countries that are part of the IJMC.
Art ARRO
Yes Art you are correct, I was confusing the Nations Trophy with team competition. Thanks for correcting me on that. I had forgotten or didn't know about the Team Trophy for the pilot and constructor. I thought it was just a category for adjusting scores accordingly giving a designer (albeit weather on a team or individual) the bonus. I need to re-read the rule book. Its been quite awhile since I have.
You have a point about being able to enforce a monetary limit. I agree with you that it probably couldn't be enforced and even if it could, I'm not sure it's a good thing to do anyway. I'm just saying that teams of people who are able to do this utilizing a full time staff of engineers, builders and designers for two years on full time salaries has a definite advantage over your individual builder and there might need to be a separate class for those folks. That's all.