opwan

My Feedback: (2)

All you warbird buffs need to untuck your shirt-tail and loosen up a little bit. Stiff-necks like you are the reason I fly mostly in my back yard!

Johnnysplits

Clearly the best comment on this whole thing. I agree 100% !!!! ARF engines LOLLOL classic !!!

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

"All you warbird buffs need to untuck your shirt-tail and loosen up a little bit. Stiff-necks like you are the reason I fly mostly in my back yard!"

Pretty arrogant to claim everyone needs to enjoy what you do, or they are "stiff-necks". Some of us just don't enjoy a flat piece of foam with a motor on it like you obviously do. To each his own. Glad though you can find a venue in the hobby that matches your talent. That is another great thing about this wonderful hobby. I do however, think it is wrong of you to look down your nose at those who enjoy more realistic looking aircraft, and the building of them. This thread is about SCALE aircraft, whether ARF or built. If you have no interest, why are you here? Go find the foamie threads and have a ball.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

Word!!
R/C Scale contests are the Figure Skating of r/c
I've been building on and off for 35 years now and only build to satisfy one person, me.
After seeing how a few friends were treated at scale contests, I'd never enter a competition where scoring is subject to a "good 'ole boys" club member's opinion.


People's choice awards at a fun fly are a different thing entirely, (wasn't that the OP ?) those are typically judged by the participants and spectators. Someone gets one of those with an ARF, then the built planes must not have been very nice or attention grabbing,, The truth hurts sometimes.

p.s.
The google tool bar spell check is my friend

yard-dart

My Feedback: (35)

Or, there may not have been any more planes to judge. It seems to have been a small event.

Speedy-Gonzales

My Feedback: (202)

I competed for a few years in static scale competitions at the TOLEDO R/C Expo and actually placed in the top 3 several times but never aquiring a 1st place award. I was competing against some big names which I will not mention since they do actually present a better model than I do but not by a huge margain. The thing that caused me to quit showing my models in Toledo was due to the fact that IMHO it is not appropriate for "professional" modelers, that have sponsors backing them and also own a hobby/modeling oriented business, to be allowed to compete against the everyday hobbyist that puts in a full 10 hour day at work and then tries to find time to retreat to their shop to produce a scale model that is of the same calibre as the "Pro"!

Another example I would like to present is the pictures in post #15 in this forum of an ARF P-40 Warhawk. Yes it is a nice looking ARF but is not even worthy of being presented as a "Scale" model. Not even close. Like trying to shoot bullets at the moon. I see in a prevoius post that the comment was made that the individual builds to please themself and not worry about others scrutiny. If you are happy with your model then be proud of it because you are only pleasing yourself but If you are competing in true scale competition then you have to please the judges and sometimes the Judges know less than you do about the subject/model they are judging. That's just the way it is.

Who judges the Judges???? Remember one thing...judging is not an easy task. Try it sometime and you will be able to see both sides clearer. Collaborating with several other judges can be intense.

Unless you are entered in "Designer Scale", which is an elite class of scale, anything can happen. I have seen models of exceptional quality placed on the judging table, the builder is convinced they have a winning model, only to find they have won nothing. Then they proceed to go into a raging tyrant only to make themselves to look like a fool. To me this is the real entertainment at any scale competition. Don't be a sore looser!

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and if entering in scale competitions...if you are looking for fairness you have landed on the wrong planet! [:'(] If you win....you are having a lucky day and on that day only! Look at your model as an exhibit or display if entering a scale competition. With this attitude there are no "loosers" at the end of the day.

opwan

My Feedback: (2)

I fly both, if you will read the "whole tread" you will see that I am in favor of ALL aircraft. The scale warbird buffs are the one's putting down the foamies. Go to post #1 and read the whole column and maybe you can figure it out. I am saying there is a purpose for both. I'd much rather practice hover manouvers and torque rolls first on my $200 foamie before I take them to my $3500 Comp ARF 50cc airframe. This just makes sense. My tallent and likes are 3D flying and when you're 3 feet off the ground you better know what input to give when you're a little out of shape. Best to do that on a foamie first don't you think? Now if I'm flying only warbirds where the biggest challenge is landing, you may not have a need for foamies. I'm not looking down my nose at anyone but please read the whole post to comprehend what I'm saying. I'm not against ANY type of aircraft as long as you're having fun with it. As for going to the foamie post. This is a public forum I believe. Please, let it soak in before you post.
[quote]ORIGINAL: ram3500-RCU

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

This may be something that all here may need to think about before hiting the "OK" button.
It appears to me that Ram3500-RCU was simply, though rather pointedly (and without personally attacking you), addressing similar comments to yours and chose to quote yours as the example. He's fairly well known on the boards and quite respected- look at his ratings score, number of posts. Not generally known for personal attacks while your post is.

Though thread seems to strike deep at the very core of many reading it, it doesn't mean we need to get personnally offended or insult those with differing opinions.

I have stick built plenty, some from plans and some from kits. I have also heavily bashed some ARFs. I am proud of the finished result of all of them and have countless hours devoted to all of my scale builds. It seems that there are purists who have not done a deconsruction of a plane before reconstructing that don't know from first hand experience what goes into a really heavily modded ARF. That's cool. There are some Arf bashes I have seen that would put some Platts or Meisters to shame on scale fidelity and appearance. The difference is the builder, not the model. That doesn't mean any old ARF should be competition worthy and certianly not a foamie. All of our planes are precious to us in some way and we alltend towards defending our passions, but the gist of this thread is supposed to be about "dumped out of the box and assembled" ARFs vs kit/stick built in competition.

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

I usually read what I write a couple times before I hit send. It helps me filter out emotional responses to things I am passionate about, like these war birds. My last post slipped through my procedure. Aviation is all about procedure. I'll do better. I like to think, after over 40 years in RC, I have something to offer my fellow modelers. Glad it seems to be the case. BTW, you will never see me on the 3D forums berating their passion for extreme aerobatics. More power to them.

I too appreciate, and have flown just about every type of RC plane less the gas turbine jobs of the last few years. Maybe others have had the same thing happen to them, but I have gone through phases in the hobby. Speed, aerobatics, bipes, micro, and giant, and warbirds, to mention a few (check out my gallery). And in four decades, they have come back around like the narrow tie a few times, but it is the giant war bird phase now. And to the extent of competition scale and flying. I've had some good and disappointing experiences with competition over the years, but you have to learn from your mistakes, as with every endeavor in life. That is why this subject is of particular interest.

Opinions vary, and many on the outside looking in, on scale competition, will say, I don't know what the big deal is. Well, it IS a big deal to those of us with a passion to make our planes look as real as we can. We all just hope that a few judges along the way agree with us. It does feel good to have others appreciate our work, much less someone who is as respected as an experienced scale judge. But for years, it has been just as fun to fly with those at the clubs and watch them enjoy their creations as well. It's all good for me.

Look, we all love this hobby or we would do something else. For this reason we have something in common. It's great that there are so many different ways to participate IMO. I get a kick out of the guy who brings his shinny new ARF warbird to the warbird event. Hey, he has just as much fun as I do. I just want to compete against 'apples for apples' in a contest. Control of that, as has been noted, is up to the CD, and the integrity of the judging.

Stickbuilder

Speedy, please excuse my editing your post to keep it more simple. To answer your question concerning who judges the Judges, In the top echelons of Scale Modeling, there is a Chief Judge, and then normally the promoter and the Contest Director. There are a minimum of 3 Judges for each class that is static judged. There is the Scale outline Judge, the Color and Marking Judge, and the Craftsmanship Judge. These Judges are selected for their experience in Scale Modeling, and their experience in Judging in lesser contests. They are subject to review prior to being invited back to judge the next contest. This even applies to the Chief Judge.

As I said earlier, you are only judged against your documentation. If you built to that documentation, then you stand an excellent chance of being in a winning position in static. You do still have to do well with your flight scores to trophy though.

Often the difference in static judging can be covered by one full point for the top 5 finishers. This is what you would expect in a top level competition. These contestants are the giants of the hobby, and their best efforts are works of art. You really need to attend a top flight competition to believe it.

Bill, Scale Outline Judge
Waco Brother #1
AMA 4720

Speedy-Gonzales

My Feedback: (202)

Stickbuilder,
No problem my friend! I totally agree with your comments but take note that you mention "in the top echelons". There is a substantial gap between "Top Gun","Scale Masters", and local scale competition/events. The judges are only capable of judging that which is presented to them via documentation but please take into account that the judges are only human too. None of us are perfect and unintentional oversights are common when judging both documentation and craftsmanship. The worst thing you can do in competition is to contest a judge!!!

Your comments have been taken without insult and are appreciated.

opwan

My Feedback: (2)

You also need to read the post's again, he was just as insulting as I. I give what I receive. Look at his ratings and number of posts? Who gives a Rat, I've been in this hobby longer than 80% of the people on here, I'm just not "well known" because I stay away from mainstream structured RC clubs and contest because of all the BS that goes on like this. Everyone is so opininated they forget to have fun. Well the 3D flyers are getting in the way when we're trying to land our warbirds, etc. etc. yada, yada, yada. Bla, Bla, Bla. Folks it's a HOBBY, it's supposed to be FUN. Not a whinfest or a Phising contest. I wasn't trying to offend anyone, but I was offended. Go back and read my old posts as you will see I don't agree with the recent politics against ARF's or any kind of RC plane, they all have a purpose for different people. I buy them because I have NO time to build and can't see as well as I used to. I may get back into building when I retire in 5 years but right now it's ARF's, haven't had a problem with any of them. But I still am out there enjoying myself until some ol warbird swings into my Hoverspace! I'm still gonna have fun out there, you'all can beat up on each other all you want , I'm out! Later

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

Here's wishing you a wonderful year of flying with yourself. Good By.[sm=thumbs_up.gif]

yard-dart

My Feedback: (35)

Good riddance. It's quite obvious you have some sort of mental problem. I'm sure everyone on here will agree that "you" are the reason you fly by yourself. I'd be willing to bet that your local clubs probably ran your ass off. No one ever singled you out, or made any sort of insult to you, the type of planes you fly, or the type of flying you do. Again, you've got problems and nothing anybody says, or does, will ever make you happy.

Lik Ram said, enjoy flying by yourself.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

If you look at page 30, you'll see the awards listed, then back up to page 28 and you'll see a photo/discription of the KMP P-38

opwan

My Feedback: (2)

I don't fly by myself, I fly with other people that have the same views as me. They are tired also of egotistical power hungry morons like yourself that try to take all the fun out of the hobby. That's why we don't fly much at AMA sanctioned fields because alot of people in this "hobby" aren't flexible to other people's interests. I'm very happy in what I do, I'm not mental, you're just too shallow to comprehend what I was trying to say in this forum. All you did was read one post of mine you didn't like and you started whining. You don't have a clue of what I was trying to convey or what you are saying yourself. You're just reading into my post what you want to hear , go back and study very hard all my posts and everyone else's here and maybe someday you might get a clue on what the debate is here, or not! I have no problem with Ram, we were expressing our points of view. Which I believe, is what a forum is for. If your expert opion of what a forum is on a different spectrum, let me know here, maybe I'm in the wrong! I do however have problems with morons like you that try to butt in and act like you have an inkling of intellegence. This is a public forum and I can express myself the way I see fit and your point of view is noted, but get a clue before you embarass yourself. 9 years of flying and you consider yourself an "expert" pilot in your profile? That right there says it all!

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

Yes, this is a "public" forum, but membership is a "privilege" not a constitutional "right". We are expected to show respect and decorum in our posts. This is clearly stated in the rules. You have offered mostly insults and berating of posts and those posting in this forum. You refer to your "point", but I for one, fail to surmise what that is, unless it is to say we are all "stiff necks" for having the passion we do here in this thread for scale aircraft, ARF, or otherwise. I feel bad for you in a way, because you are missing out on meeting some really nice people in the hobby. People that you could learn from, and, according to you, teach from your vast experience.

I know this seems to be a deviation from the subject, but please bear with me. I too once distanced myself from the 'mainstream' in the hobby, the clubs. Decades ago, a school yard did quite well. No soccer to deal with on the week ends, so football fields were fair game on the week ends. I taught myself to fly in an empty field near my house. My dad had been a full scale pilot so I knew something about it. My brother and I, and a hand full of other guys just showed up and flew on the week ends. We even had a huge parking lot to land on. Even had brakes on some of our stuff. All hand built, by the way. No ARFs back then. Well, in came soccer on the week ends, and after a few incidents buy some very undisciplined pilots, our flying sites started to dry up. It was then some of us joined the local club. We knew many of the guys already from our visits and bull sessions at the LHS. And here is where I'm going with this. It wasn't till then, that I really started to become a good 'pilot in command'. You all know the guy. Can't turn right,or at least comfortably, flies around himself, yea, the plane flies him half the time. That was me and my brother. I learned how to "command" my planes. It was the discipline of having a definite pattern, having to keep the plane out in front of me instead of being able to fly circles around myself, restricted areas like the pits, having to make both left and right landing approaches and such, and the critiquing of my pilotage by guys more experienced than me. I also learned that I needn't learn everything the hard way when it came to my planes, radios, set-up and such. I have enjoyed my club memberships for a couple decade now. I belong to three local clubs. All with nice guys who love aviation as I do, nice flying sites for various types, and yes, some politics and even a little "wining. But I came to realize that we all have two choices, be part of the problem, or the solution. I try to get along with my fellow modelers, and I think they enjoy what I bring to the field, and vice versa.

Now for the thread connection. It was this association via the local clubs, events, competitions, and shows, that has inspired me over the years to build the kind of models I do. Seeing what others can and choose to build, and then having a predictably safe and maintained environment to fly them in has been a wonderful experience for me, and I find myself regretting not having "joined" sooner. We have the internet now, a great resource, but there is no substitute for all the interesting conversation and stories shared in person at the local club or event. I encourage anyone considering this hobby to hook up with the local club, befriend it's pilots and learn all you can. It won't take long to figure out who the complainers are, as well as who you can count on for good advice, encouragement, and friendship, and mentoring. Every club has all kinds. Just let the crap go in one ear and out the other. You will be much happier and so will those you associate with.

Sorry for the "soap box" time. I just hate to see such negativism be allowed to go unchecked. I can agree when he said this is a hobby and should be fun. So I would say, why not try and enhance our enjoyment, instead of being so negative, critical, and unkind.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Gentlemen, I have deleted and edited many post in this thread. As time permits I may do many more. Not all of you got a personal notification of what was done to your post. For this I am sorry but the shear volume of editing and constraints on my time did not allow it.
On to the business at hand. There is no place for personal attacks on RCU. These will be deleted as soon as they are discovered. This is why I ask you all to report a problem post ASAP. This is the proper way to deal with a problem. Posting a quote of a problem and complaining does nothing. On the bottom of every post is a report button. Please use it. As mods we have no way of reviewing every post. We count on the membership to help us by pointing these things out.
Thank you for your time and please keep personal feeling about other members to yourself.

David

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

Thank you for your vigilance and reminders on how to use the site better. Personally, I have never used the 'report' button in all these years. I will in the future. Guess I naively thought moderators just read through things like we do. You guys do have lives, as do we. Sorry for the oversight. You guys do a good job.

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Thank you for your understanding. I did start to read this thread when it first started with some interest. However, it quickly grew to 10 pages and I just could not keep up with it.

Thanks again, David

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

How many forums are moderators responsible for? How does it work with you guys?

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

I have three that I am responsible for. There is some overlapping on those three though. In other words, there can be several mods assigned to the same forum. When a ticket it generated in a forum, it is assigned in rotation to be dealt with. An email is sent to one mod for him to handle it. If I see a problem in a forum that I am not assigned to, I have no more tools to deal with it than you do. The exception being, there is a mods forum that only mods have access to. I can start a post in there or just start a ticket like everyone else. Normally the mods forum is only for dealing with things that need immediate attention, or if a mod needs a second opinion about a problem.
There are of course a few mods that have control over everything. These guys are the only ones that can ban or suspend a member, or place them on MS. This is rarely done and only in extreme circumstances. There job is much harder than mine. It also requires a stronger knowledge of computers than I posses.

I hope this helps Ram. If I can help any further, please email or PM me. I don't want to clutter this thread with a bunch of off topic discussion. Someone could start a ticket on me.

David

yard-dart

My Feedback: (35)

I want to apologize for my post, which was one you deleted. I was mad as all get out when I wrote it, and tried to keep it as clean as possible, while still getting my point across. In all reallity, I didn't think it was all that bad, but since you're the moderator, you obviously thought differently. Anyway, it really ticks me off when we get people with attitudes on these forums. If they don't agree with you, out comes the grudge talk.

From now on, I'll be one of the first to report early smack-talk. That's one way to keep them quiet.

ram3500-RCU

My Feedback: (221)

Thanks David for taking the time to reply. I think it is beneficial once in awhile to stop and consider what all goes on behind the scenes to keep this site clean and enjoyable for us all. A reminder that just because we live in a 'free country' does not make it moral to be unkind and disrespectful to others. Also that our membership here is indeed a 'privilege' not an 'entitlement', that can be revoked.

Again, sorry for the divination from topic. Back to the ARF competition debate, I hope.

The more I think about it, I think it would be good, for many in the hobby, if we did have contests for only ARF airplanes. Or at least their own category in some established contests. This could also be broken down into stock and modified classes. With the growing number of guys with only ARF experience, this may just help with the financial support of these events.

And BTW, Yard-Dart your last post was top shelf, IMO. You da man.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

So why not just make it easy on everyone. If it's a judged show, split it. ARF/Kit built/ Scratch built. Seems pretty straight forward.
They already split out the competition at TG, like civilian, WWII, WW1, etc.

If you think about it, the more categories you have the better the chance for a bigger turn out. Makes sense that if you list ONLY scratch built the turn out is going to be a lot less then if you have 3 classes or more.

I've seen some pretty beautiful jobs on ARF's. Like CJ's and Ram's. Granted they are not in the same category that a pure scratch build scale should be in. But why exclude them from competitions. A lot of hours and skill went into converting them from the everyday run of the mill they started out as.

Limit the categories, you could be limiting the crowds. Each flyer brings their own cheering section of friends and families.
And having 50 or more pretty birds on a flight line looks a heck of a lot better then a dozen. A lot of the folks who come to shows are there to see planes. They have no clue that the plane should have 57 rivets on a panel, they see a panel with rivets at best, or that you have a scale copy of a seldom seen WWII Russian bird. They will know a "Flying Tigers" P-40 though, or a P-38, or a Mustang, and so on. To them it's a plane, and just the shape alone is enough to bring out old memories from far away lands they were at when they were young. I've seen it at shows like NEAT which is electric only. Folks walking through the pits area see a bird and bang you start hearing stories from when they flew one or repaired em.

Heck my wife wouldn't know a B-17 from P-47, but I guarantee you she knows a "Shark Mouthed" P-40, she calls it the "Painted face" plane and can spot one a mile away.

Give em 50+ birds and they are going to be there a while, a dozen and if they aren't hanging around for the flying they are done and they want to go home, especially the little ones.

Remember scale,stick built, scratch, ARF, RTF, etc. these are all our brothers and sisters in our hobby, instead of looking down on them give them their own spot in the show, and give the folks who come to see the show a big one.

Heck I was at TG this year, and as for being the best of the best, how many birds lost wheels? The best, and they can't even keep the wheels on some of em. LOL!