Originally Posted by
FenderBean
Been reading through this and I think its a rule problem, If Top Gun is meant to be an all around event like you get scored on scale and flying together then its a judging problem. Because I dont know any ARF out there that you can hold documentation pictures up to and even come close. On the other hand with kits you can build vanishing like Yellow Aircraft and others what choice do people have? Sure you can say well just build your own, but the few people that can actually do that wouldnt fill an event big enough to sponsor. Yes you have the world events but if you had an even like this in the states it would be very small I think. I think all these events should have classes and anything ARF should be in a novice class, and let all the quote "true builders" have their expert class for scale that is. People are working a lot more these days, when I started the hobby people didnt work 6 or 7 days a week and had time to build as well. This day in time its the most common compliant is "not enough time" and I agree some but other are just to dang lazy or dont have the the building knowledge. Its a culture thing, when all we had were kits, we built kits and today they have arfs so they build ARFs. I love to build and look forward to the day I can order a kit thats not painted so I can do everything myself! I spend more time fixing problems and redoing things than anything.
Ultimately its the event rules and judging that should dictate this.... Just my thoughts, but I dont think someone with an ARF is getting higher scores than the true builder kits that are built to near 100% accuracy. Surely not? Right?
The rules need to remain fairly consistent throughout the U.S. between Scale Masters, AMA Nats (NASA), and Top gun. Right now they are very similar. My focus right now is on AMA and Scale masters events, as they are within reach for me from a traveling stand point. One day I may decide to make the trek to Florida, but it is a long way to drive. Regardless, my aircraft are legal for any of these 3 events. If you build, to enter Expert class, I suppose it really does not matter. Masters, is akin to FAI, which is also called designer scale. Actually drawing your plans from 3-views. This is a whole other level, and naturally there will be less of these entries.
The ARF classes exist in all 3 scale rules sets across the country. The ARF classes by no means adversely effect the higher classes as they are completely separate. So statements that the ARF's are killing scale would be totally false. They are necessary really as stepping stones to the higher classes.