ORIGINAL: 2HI2C
I thought I would like to go scale in the late 80s & built a 1/3 scale sopwith pup, I spent over 2 yrs building it, I entered it in the 1989 IMAA Rally of Giants in Odessa TX & found out real fast that I would never be able to compete because I could see right off the bat it was a money game & who knew who & I did not have the money & knew no one . I am not saying that there all like this. I am just saying this one was. I personally build my planes for my own enjoyment not to get a pat on the back from everyone else (And I still do build kits but ARF's have a big place in my hangar now). So I went back to the fun flys. I still have the highest respect for scratch builders & think they should have there event. So let them have it. If you want to go & try to compete or watch GO, If you don't Stay Away. I personally will not be there. See you at the fun flys.
It's kind of like playing any other sport. If you only compete with those who you know that you can beat, you will never become better at it. If you use a scale contest as a learning experience, then you will become a better modeller. Surely, you didn't expect to win your first time out did you? It's not necessarialy a money game. It is a persistance game. You go, you find out that you have a lot to learn, so when you get home, you start correcting things, and you go again. You place a little higher, and go home and do some more stuff. Every time you beat yourself, you learn some more.
As I said earlier, it is virtually impossible to find accurate documentation to match the plane that you have already built. The top performers always collect their documentation first, and then build the model to match that as closely as they can. You are only competing with yourself. Once you have the static part dialed in, then you need to work on your flying. Try to fly the model exactly as the full scale plane would fly the sequence. People tend to over fly the plane, and try to make it do things that the full scale plane could never hope to do. The flight judges grade you on what you tell them that you are about to do with the plane. If you are flying a Sopwith Pup, then you wouldn't attempt a harrier, or a waterfall. People also tend to fly the model too fast. Once you get out of scale speed, nothing that you do in the way of flight manuvers will appear to be correct.
Give scale competition another try. I would guess that your Sopwith was the Balsa USA kit. Anyone who can complete that build successfully, should keep trying. That is not an easy building kit. You had to have something going for you to have been able to do it. Yes, you might have to strip the covering and do it again, or you might need to reframe part of the plane to match your documentation, but that's what scale modelling is all about. Those models that you thought had mega bucks in them, might just have had mega hours invested. A scale event is not like a sport scale contest, nor is it like what you see at the Podunk Hollow flying field. Events such as Top Gun and the ScaleMasters, is where the best (arguably) in the world come to compete. Keep working at it. You can get there, or awfully close. The difference between first and second is normally measured in thousands of a point. These guys are that good. They weren't that good their first try.
Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1