R_Strowe,

While I appreciate your response, you still haven't answered my question (unless I am completely dense!).
You said that the local, regional, national method of competition worked for skating, but wouldn't for model airplanes. I am curious as to why you think that.

My kids are competitive bowlers. They compete in one tournament each year that starts at a local level, with most all youth league bowlers participating. the top 50% advance to sectionals (there are two sectionals in WA State, East and West). The top 25% of each sectional advance to the state level to crown a state champ. Unfortunately, this tourney does not advance to any kind of national level, but it could, following the same model (top 5 or ten from each state go to Nationals).
Another national tourney that they compete in is called Junior Gold. It is the largest youth bowling tourney in the world, with over 5,000 competitors each year. It travels to a different city each year, but has been somewhat limited to what cities it can travel to lately, due to the sheer amount of lanes needed to accommodate this many bowlers. It is a week-long event. Can you imagine 5,000 youth, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, etc in one city for a whole week of bowling tournament? I have two boys and we have attended this tournament every year for the last 13 or 14 years. Trust me, I am well aware of what it takes logistically and financially to compete at a high level on a national stage. Anyway, the Junior Gold tourney holds local qualifier in conjunction with existing youth tournaments throughout the bowling season. If a tournament director wishes his tournament to be a Junior Gold qualifier (his tourney must meet certain qualifications, ie; minimum of 6 games, etc.), he collects an additional entry fee from the kids who wish to compete and I believe it is 1 in 4 entrants win (earn) their spot to compete at that years' Junior Gold tourney , usually held in July. Cities we have travelled to for Junior Gold: Indianapolis (3 times), Detroit (3 times), Chicago, Buffalo, Las Vegas, Dallas, Cleveland. The hosting organization for this event (United States Bowling Congress, or USBC) takes bids from cities a couple years in advance of these tournaments and are paid DEARLY by the host city to bring a captive audience of that size to their city for a week.

I am curious why you think this won't work for modeling competitions? As I said before, it seems to work well for Scale Masters.

Astro