mark:

you are right, there is no gray area, the problem is that it is ignored, so regardless how precise the language is, the result is meaningless. Keep in mind that IMAC went three years without a scale percentage and IMAC then and IMAC now are the same - with or without a percentage, nothing changes. But spend some time measuring fuselage cross sections and talking to the mfrs about how scale is determined, and you will find out pretty fast that there are plenty of airplanes that don't meet the requirements of the rule. As I said earlier, this is not a new issue. It was beat to death years ago when a scale inspired Giles and Extra were in the pattern community, and the IMAC rules committee spent considerable time trying to find a way to make damn sure that these airplanes couldn't compete. I think at the time, there had been two people who had been turned away because the airplanes weren't "scale". But let's talk about the present - do you think that CDs take the time to check scale fidelity? No. They work under the assumption that as long as it looks scale it is. this has nothing to do with the efforts of CDs - which I know a little about - this is purely a rules issue, in the same camp as the box excursion downgrades - they are all but meaningless.