Well, if you are talking to me, I wrote the rule change and was the one who championed it with the IMAC BoD and got the IMAC Rule committee to propose it. It passed the preliminary vote of the SACB, but then they failed it in the final vote. I for one did not see it coming.

I have no idea why the SACB decided against it at the last moment. It is only 1 of 2 proposed rules changes that they failed. I will try it again for the next rules cycle.

Basically if it cannot be defined precisely it needs to go away. And it also violates my idea that the only thing that should effect the outcome of a contest is what happens in the air.

My original idea for this rule was to tightly define the requirements AND make it so that if needed a pilot and panel to even compete, no points BS. Either that, or kill it.

Beyond that, I am not aware of any great lobbying effort one way or the other. I know that in my District the contest board member told me he was voting in favor of killing the rule ad then changed his mind sometime later. Go figure

And to be clear, the way this works is that it is an AMA process. The SIG (IMAC) proposes the rules changes it wants along with any others submitted by the general membership. Then the Contest Board takes over. They have an initial vote, publish the proposed rules, and then have a final vote. It is the members of the contest boards who decided these things in the end.