Why is there no IMAC pressence in socal? There is an organization called SCAT. Seems like they do similar sequences... Is someone pissed off at someone? It seems a pity that the limited resources available to promote RC, (Scale Aerobatics in particular) are divided between 2 groups that appear to have a similar goal. That is my impression from the outside, I have never been a member of either. Rather then this thread turning into a MUDSLINGING venue, could someone explain (Semi) objectively why the two organizations exist. Should/Could the two be merged? I have a feeling that the seperation is not necessarily a position held by the members of either organization. I would bet lunch in fact that the two orginizations have many common members. Any takers on explaining this?

HMMMMM... no takers on this one?... did I hit a nerve?!?!?

I was also waiting to see a response. I fly both and I enjoy both. The main difference with SCAT is it is a point series operated by the same 2 people. they run every contest.

IMAC is a special interest group (SIG) of the AMA. any club can host an IMAC contest. SCAT only has 6 contests in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and So Cal.

I wont say anything bad about either organization. I enjoy both of there contest and I feel it makes me better to fly both sequences.

I am not suprised to know you would do both... is there an IMAC activity in south west US I am unaware of? I may some day actually do this!!!

Why is SCAT only limited to the south west?
I guess I didn't know that another group existed.
Why not share resources?

I do not think they are limited to the southwest, but that is the area they seem to be most prevailent. I seem to recall that JR radio is a sponsor.... Yeah... why not share resources?

SCAT stands for Southern California Aerobatic Team which may have something to do with why they are prevalent in the southwest. Check out [link=http://www.scaleaerobatics.org]JR SCAT Aerobatic Series[/link] for more information.

There are only two people that I have heard of.
Brian Copfer and Bill Hempel

I knew about the "SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA" part... they are signing up for a contest in las vegas now at the website LOL

After organizing and running an IMAC contest with absolutely no help from the IMAC organization,(This was the first year that IMAC went to 5 classes, but failed to produce a scoring program for CD's to use), I looked around for other alternatives. Having talked to the organizers of SCAT I invited them to hold a contest in Phoenix. The whole thing is run like clockwork and when you consider the average turn out is 40 plus pilots per event, that is pretty outstanding.
The incentive to fly more than just your local contest is also there, with great prizes for the class winners for the season. Even just at the contest the pilot draw at the end of the meeting will almost always ensure that you go home with at least half of the $50.00 entry fee in some form of prize. the top prizes often being worth several hundred dollars. Given the choice of between flying a SCAT or a regular IMAC event, SCAT wins every time with me.
Now if you want to talk about the Tucson Shootout IMAC event............that is another thing altogether!

A320driver, I am going to ask a general question and I hope no one takes offense, but why not run an IMAC contest like SCAT. The only difference will be that the knowns and judging will be different (IMAC) everything else can be SCAT. Has this been tried?

I will answer that question.

It would work fine. The reason we contacted SCAT to have a contest in Phoenix was because we heard that they ran great contests with lots of pilots attending. In past years we averaged in the low 20's for an IMAC contest. I am sure part of it was how it was run and getting people to volunteer. We were correct, there were a lot of out of town flyers that came in for the contest. Even better all we had to provide was the field and a kitchen. As far as the attendence we had a 50 % increase over the IMAC from the previous year (all from 4 hrs or more away) We also had a lot going against us; it was the first week of the war, gas prices were sky high.

It was a great learning experiece watching how they ran contests, they are very organized.

Sounds like we can learn something from them.
Too bad I don't get to the left coast like I use to.
I plan to one day become a CD and put on contests.
I would enjoy hosting a IMAC contest.
While all I have gone to have been fun, I would not say they have been smooth.
I know this is a lot of work and maybe a dedicated team to run the contest is a better solution than what is being done in IMAC.

In any case, SCAT offers another source for information and opinions on Scale Aerobatics.

This past weekend we had our first SCAT contest of the year in Las Vegas at Bennet field. Like always it was a great time. We had 50 pilots, we flew 4 known seqences on Sat. On Sun we flew 1 unknown and 2 knows and we were done with the flying by 1:30 and we were on the road back to AZ by 2:20.

I always give Bill and Barry the credit for running a great contest. but the pilots at this contest were always ready to fly. when we switched to a new class the judges for the new class are standing behind the previous class ready to get to the flying. It really is a group effort and a wonderful thing to participate in.

I agree with Tony, I plan on flying both this year simply because there are only 2 IMAC contests a year here in AZ. But ouch, back-to-back weekends this April (SCAT/IMAC). Practicing weekends only for both sequences won't be too bad for us sportman classes but just think of the advanced and unlimitted pilots with complex sequences. This could almost kill the already dwindling participation in the Spring IMAC in Tucson the following weekend. I hope communication between the two groups is better next year. I love aerobatics, no matter what the "organization" is called.

All I can say is that the JR-SCAT Series schedule was complete and final in November 2003. Most of the IMAC CDs had not even begun to think about their 2004 schedule at that point. Coordination is an admirable goal, but one that is devilishly difficult to implement in reality.

Add to that the fact most scheduling is handled on the club level and not at the level of IMAC and it makes it even more difficult to accomplish this goal.

Bill.

Bill, looking at the SCAT schedules, it’s hard to believe scheduling is driven at the club level based on the regular rolling 6 week period between the SCAT events posted on your web site. July is the only apparent outlier due to reasons we all understand. (In AZ it’s air conditioning!). With excuses and blame put aside from either “org” or who was first to place the date, and with web sites and e-mail open to the world, is there any respect or compromise left for exploitation based on just the past years events? Last year’s Tucson Spring IMAC was held April 26-27, 2003. Your 2003 Phoenix SCAT contest was weeks earlier. Out of 365 days per year, did a Phoenix club invite a 2004 SCAT contest in place of the only 2004 Arizona spring contest here on the exact 6-week mark? If you only have 6 SCAT contests per year, in just a handful of states, it would be too easy to see possible conflicts with today’s technology. If you need the help for this, I will volunteer. Steam-rolling an IMAC event is putting us in a “corner” practice-wise and hotel-wise no matter who throws excuses first. If SCAT is attracting more pilots in Arizona, why not make sure it is done in “admirable” fashion with good date separations? Otherwise, my thinking will rack up the “roving CD” as the major limiter for SCAT. If you can make SCAT a plus to the any state’s competition trail, and not a substitute, everyone will benefit.

(All mention of “benefit” regarding Contest Directors (CD’s) is exclusively denied based on form, fit and function of the term “everyone” when an RC transmitter is not in the actual presence of a CD’s bodily controlling influence.)

I am very sorry I got into this. I have sent Jack an offline response to a private email from him.

Plain fact is I did not "steam roll anyone". The SVF came to me with that date and I took it. Then I went 6 weeks out and back form that date and approached the clubs that had come to me asking to host a contest with my first choice dates. To my amazement they ALL said yes. As compared to the previous year when I spent nearly 2 months trying to get the schedule set!! Some years are easier than others.

When I said scheduling is driven at the club level, well it is. Each club determines then when of the use of their field. As I said above, I got lucky this year and each club said yes to my first pick date once the Phoenix club locked up the first date. It all tumbled out from there.

And to be clear, there are not 365 days of the year available for a contest, so that remark seems odd. In fact there are 52 weekends. Now take away the non-flying months due to heat or rain and you are left maybe 32 weekends. Now put a 6-week spacing in there and suddenly all the flexibility that may appear to be there is gone.

All I can say is that things are WAY easier from the outside than they are from the inside.

Hope this helps. Once again, let me very clearly state that there was not and has never been an attempt on my part to willingly interfere with any other event. Period.

Bill

Jack,

I am the one that setup the date with Bill. It was a date that worked for our club. Doug Lee's contest was not even scheduled at that time. I contacted Bill early on about a contest this year and we set the date. Actually the date was set last November when we were setting up our club calander for the year.

It is not like there are a lot of activities going on at TRCC that Doug had to work around. At SVF we have 370 members and 4 major events to plan around in the spring.

Tony

Thanks for clearing that up Tony. There are legitimate reasons I/others care so much about keeping the Tucson Spring IMAC alive. Although a "low-key" contest it was a great place to cultivate "new blood" to the their first IMAC experience. You will notice a handfull of new faces this year in Sportsman & BASIC that made life-long bonds last spring and have given it hell ever-since. We all planned on going back this year and promting others to attend. You know, pump some life into it...and part of the plan was to get some of your club members coming down too. Looks like we made opposite turns somewhere, now the back-to-back thing is here. The SCAT contest will definately be more exiciting and competitive, and maybe less windy than last year based on the new window. Any chance we could get a little seperation next year with Doug's contest or will Doug have to move further out?

Jack, You could ask Doug the same question about scheduling contests. We scheduled over 6 months in advance and then Doug scheduled his. He could have gone 2 weeks before us. I agree that it is important to keep as many contests in the area as possible. I plan on flying at Tucson.

Anna Wood had a contest calendar on the "imacwebscore" website early in the year to assist all the CD's in choosing dates. I sent an email to Anna to please include the JR-SCAT Series dates on the site to assist the CD's in choosing their dates and for the pilots to be able to plan their contest year. She was willing to, and the information on contest dates for both organizations was available for the CD's that wanted to try and coordinate dates.

The JR-SCAT Scale Aerobatic Series website also includes a contest calender with events from both organizations.

http://www.scaleaerobatics.org/non_scat_schedule.html

I think Anna and the SCAT Series Director are very aware that many pilots, including myself, aren't really concerned with who is hosting the contest. We just want to fly contests that are within a reasonable distance, are well run, have a good sized group of competitive pilots to fly against, and are FUN!!!

For me that means I fly the SCAT Series primarily, and the Tucson Shootout because it meets the criteria above.

The JR-SCAT Series is accomplishing Jack's goal of creating new interest in Scale Aerobatics in the Southwest. The Las Vegas contest had 19 pilots in the Basic Class, and another 10 in the Sportsman Class. My club had 4 or 5 pilots fly consistently in the JR-SCAT Series last year. This year we had 10 members compete in the Las Vegas contest. Three were new pilots in the Basic Class. We'll likely have 12 or more pilots from my club flying at the Phoenix event on April 24th & 25th.

The "Series" concept has created a lot of new Scale Aerobatics interest in the Southwest!!! My personal "Thanks!!" to Bill Malvey (Series Director), Barry Wegman (Series Administrator), Jr/Horizon Hobby, and all the great sponsors that make the JR-SCAT Series possible.

http://www.scaleaerobatics.org/sponsors.html


Dean Bird
Sun Valley Fliers
Phoenix, AZ