Bob, your thoughts echo mine precisely. I will probably enter a contest or two, just to say I did it. But the knowledge that one must have a huge plane to be competitive at most upper levels has effectively killed any real interest I may have had.

I don't want no steenkin' trailer either. This is my hobby; if it becomes too much work, then I'll lose interest. That is what killed my interest in competitve shooting. I knew I HAD to practice at least twice a week to stay competitive. It got to the point where I had to drag myself to the range. And then one day, as I was loading the gear into the car, a kid down the block was taxiing an Eagle up and down the street in front of his house. I walked down there to check it out... and a week later I had a Royal 40T ready to fly. I lingered on in the shooting game for a couple of years, but by the end of 1991 I was done with it.

My flying buddy got a trailer. Half the time he leaves it at home, and throws his Funtana 90 into his truck. That tells me something. Besides, I'm working out of a spare bedroom. The quarter-scale models are too big for my bench; I have to use the kitchen table to work on them. I intend to get a 30% plane down the road, and have no clue how I'll work on it. But that's it. Any bigger than that is simply not in the cards for me.

Yes, yes, I know that any problem can be worked around. But that's just it; I don't WANT to have to solve any more problems than necessary. And I don't want to have to buy a van.

Anyway, I intend to go to a contest or two for cheap thrills. Come to think of it, they WON'T be cheap... You know what I meant.

But become a serious competitor? Highly unlikely...