At what level in scale are you intending to compete? I have always wanted to compete at your NATS however the timing is usually not good for me. I spent several years as scale chairman in Canada and scale is what I like to fly. At one of our scale nats the guy I was in close competition with had his engine bearings go to lunch on him first round Sat morning. I offered to take a look at it and he removed it from the plane. In a cardboard flat I took the engine apart and removed all the crank bearings. Called the local bearing company they were open till noon. Off went the wife to retrieve the bearings and the pilot proceeded to clean the parts in some fuel. The next round was at 1 pm. He had traveled a fair distance to participate and wasn't worried about the engine being repaired under field (less than ideal) conditions. It didn't take long to get it back together and the timing pin I had made the cam timing a snap. Carb had not been taken apart and the settings were as before. I set the valves so there was just barely movement when the other valve was down. He installed the engine and it fired right up. Bugger went on to beat me for second place by less than 10 points. We have remained good friends since. Like you said I love this hobby and the challenges it presents. I have been lucky enough to fly in quite a few places in the US and have met nothing but good guys and gals at every field I have been to.

Dennis