Ok, here comes my two cents worth.......

I as well attended the 2005 Mint Julep at Rough River State Park and found a few unsettling things taking place throughout the contest. First off I want to saw that the vent was in luck as far as the weather and only had a crosswind to deal with both days. I enjoyed seeing other models and pilots abilities.....BUT.....

and before i go any further, i want you all to know i DID NOT compete in the event so i dont want to sound like a sore loser!

it was rather aggravating to stand not too far behind the judges during the flights and hearing the pilot call the maneuver and shortly after beginning I literally heard one judge ask the other thoughts on the entrance to a maneuver, or for a scoring level like 7 or 8 for a procedure after it is complete. I found it absolutely ABSURD that they could feel this was a fair sense of judging an event, whether it be model airplanes or ice skating. I dont think you would find a French judge at th olympics ask a Chinese judge his thoughts on and athletes performance, and this is no different! To further my disbelief of this actually happening, i spoke with several people from different classes and when they showed me their score cards, EVERY score in each pair of judges were EXACTLY the same for EVERY maneuver. Now i dont know about the next guy, but i woudl personally think that my indivudual idea of a procedure accuracy on a scale of 1-10 would be a little different if i answered individually and honestly from the guy sitting next to me. I agree with the abovre where the flight realism coudl be discussed, but not EACH maneuver throughout the flight! This if see a sa very poor aspect of this contest that could easily be resolved by seperating the judges. All in all though, it seemed to not failry and impartially score the participants. (and not to linger on it, but i have video available and photos of both jusge pairs comparing scores while judging, as well as not even looking at participants aircraft while he is performing a called maneuver--but honestly woudl prefer not to post them so it dosent become an individual attack becasue all judges were doing the same, just got a few sets on camera.)

Now....about this so called Expert class and Fun class.......

I was delighted to see participants such as Mike Barbie or the like at local level events, i just personally hate that it takes a qualifier for a larger event have them grace a local event with their presence! I guess that I just have a porblem with a person of that experience level and skill competing in a class that is known to be beneath them. IMO, if a airplane manufacturer provides you with an expensive aircraft and all needed components in order to write a review for a magazine....odds are they consider you of a very high skill level with a highly regarded opinion. So basically the woudl classify you in the top percent of pilots, right? I dont see them giving $700 or $800 airplanes to first time pilots to write reviews?! I understand the thought of a pilot of that class wanting to compete in a lower level class so the claim coudl be made that "I won a Mint Juelp with a Great Planes" or then in return Great Planes could say, "Our plane places first!"...or the like. Maybe some magical rule book allows this but common sense has to come into play somwhere. Lets put it in the real world sense for a moment, lets make it a local race track where you have regularly competed for 3 years and have grown to being into the advanced class. so you pull your car up to the line and then learn that John Force has his $180,000 car up against your pinto, all because he is wanting to "broaden his experience at that track"? how would that make you feel, knowing that he has tons more experience than you and virutally unlimited funds for creating his car?? Wouldnt like that much woudl you?

Now, another prime example of such happening is a competitor , that if i am not mistaken, flew a Tiger moth or the like (you know..one of those silly biplanes!). At the awards ceremony either won the advanced class or placed in the top 3. This is only an example not an attack, but shouldnt that pilot be in the expert class, being and all that even the April Model Airplane News magazine (which was handed out at the awards ceremony) included an article about that pilot and airplane and remarked how he had mastered the skill of r/c'ing? Huh?! Maybe I am one of those silly hippies who likes an equal and level playing field and all or something. I just think a little more enforcement in participant classification could made a lot more competitive event instead of the predictable results we saw this past weekend! To top it off our Disctrict VP for AMA was there and apparently didnt see a problem with all this either, makes me wonder what it takes to qualify to be on the AMA board??? I know a few middle school kids that could see thorugh some of the poope there.

Now on to a more hilarious topic of discussion that happened at the 2005 Mint Julep......

There was a guy there who had a beautiful Yellow AT-6, which made an unfortunate belly landing Sat evening after some failure. I saw him on Sunday after the controlled crash to ask how the plane was and his response was the plane is fine and was ust mis tuned after a long time of not running prior to the event. Next I asked when he was up to perform for the judges again, and i almost passed out laughing when he told me he wasnt going to compete because some other participant complained that his AT-6 was too LOUD and it caused the other guy to miss his landing?! What the freak....Deeeeeerrrrrr...... I mean lets see..... I couldnt hear it, thats why i botched my landing, yea right! Anyway this guy told mehe wasnt going to fly the AT-6 on sunday because of that and all and that just urked me that the CD wouldnt step up and at least re-arrange the flight schedule or somethign to allow him to participate. Oh and last i checked.....which would be last month at Thunder Over Louisville, where there were seeveral AT-6's....the full scales are LOUD, with a capital L, so what isnt scale about having a loud gas motor on a model???? Geesh.

On and to just really finish it up, the guy that complained about how loud it was, Sunday, not only botched the landing, but slid his Gee Bee on it's nose after almost cartwheeling down the runway on his landing procedure.....and just to note, the only other plane in the air was a J-3 Cub off in the distance over some trees wiht a 2-stroke onboard!! haha......


So see, there is alot of fun at R/c Events, just not when you have a pretty crummy management going on and all that overlook the obvious parts. I encourage others to attend this club's event as well as others in the future, but i must say, I will only return to the Mint Julep as a spectator, never as a participant after my experiences this year and what I have seen as their standard procedure.

NigrumAirlines i think you have a point and i agree with parts of the others, i just wish more of a governing body had a presence in monitoring events like this, especially if they are to be qualifiers for national events!

anywho, happy crashing....i mean flying!




(and remember, any landing is nothign but a controlled crash!)