FAI Weight Thread

[John Pavlick]

Guys,
 Has anyone looked at any Pylon racing forums? They have a MINIMUM weight
requirement. Everyone works DOWN to achieve the goal. Guess what they're
arguing about? The same thing that we are - they want to raise the weight
limit to allow more planes to be competitive. The reasoning is that some of
the ARFs are heavier than MINIMUM weight (sound familiar?). They figure that
by adding weight to light airplanes to make them "legal", while leaving the
heavy ones alone, everyone will be even again. The points and counterpoints
are exactly the same ones we have.
 The problem we're having is because everyone knows the RIGHT thing to do (I
think), but it's too late. If the rules were worded differently from the
beginning, we wouldn't be discussing this now. It would not be a good idea
to make someone's airplane illegal overnight (make the glow fuel weight
include fuel) even though it's technically the correct thing to do. Keep in
mind the new rules don't go into effect immediately. In retrospect, I think
as long as the size is limited, the weight will stay in line because we're
all trying to build lighter airplanes, aren't we? The down side of limiting
just the size and not the weight of course has one loophole: biplanes. Think
about it. Speak now or deal with it later...
 Now would probably be a good time to look at your plane and see if you can
lighten it up SAFELY. The worst thing that will happen is it might fly a
little better. If 99% of us could make weight with a full tank, it might put
an end to this for a while. Maybe this isn't even possible today, but by the
time the rules go into effect, it probably will be.
John Pavlick
http://www.idseng.com




 -----Original Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org]On
Behalf Of Ed Miller
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 6:43 PM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: Re: FAI Weight Thread


  5.5Kg or by my calculations 12 pounds 1+ ounce is fine for glow with fuel
and electric with batteries. If that levels the playing field, if it needs
leveling, those are numbers I can live with. In fact at 12 pounds, a
conventional glass/foam/balsa/ply large 2 meter plane ( like the EMC ) can
be built with electric power and make weight. But I wonder do we really need
to mess with the weight issue ?? There was a time I was all for raising the
5Kg limit, not so anymore. Although the prospect of building an E power EMC
is enticing. The real issue is do we ( USA AMA ) continue to follow FAI
should they adopt an absurd rule that obsoletes all our toys overnight ??? I
hope not.
  Ed M.

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