[NSRCA-discussion] NATS 2012
Archie Stafford
astafford at md.metrocast.net
Tue Dec 13 09:38:34 AKST 2011
While I certainly appreciate the joking side of this and knew that
it was coming. I want people to understand why I chose to do this.
In previous years, it has been possible to make the finals of Masters
and or FAI with an illegal airplane, and even worse, it was possible
to win Intermediate or Advanced. If you choose to weigh the
Intermediate and Advanced folks after the 5th or 6 round, you have no
idea what they did the first four, and what if you had someone win all
of those rounds, they could fail weight later and still conceivably
win, or make changes to their plane to get them legal. Not that it
has happened, but it was possible. By weighing Masters and FAI the
night before, you truly have no idea what they could do to their
planes. Once they received a sticker, no one ever verified anything
again. They could change batteries or any number of other things and
no one ever looked.
If you weigh each airplane once a day, then the possibility of this
happening are greatly reduced. In this scenario, at least one round
that must count for Intermediate and Advanced would have to be weighed
and if they failed, and received a zero for that round, it would
impact their ability to win the contest. The same goes for pilots in
other classes with making the finals. Choosing to weigh at the very
end does not prove that each plane was legal through the contest. I'm
not saying this does or doesn't happen, I'm just saying that the
possibility does exist and at the National Championships, I want to
limit the number of these possibilities occuring.
At the pilots meeting, there is no way to know who will be making
the finals. I'm sure there are people there who have no intention of
winning or making the finals, but it is not fair to look down the list
and make a judgement on who should, or who shouldn't be weighed and by
waiting until the last day when the results are known, you have given
those with a chance to win opportunities to "cheat" without being
checked. Maybe for future years an option is given to pilots to sign
a waiver or something saying they choose not to be weighed and they do
not want their results to count. It was pointed out to me by someone
that who cares if the 20th place pilot isn't weighed. Well, anyone
finishing 21 or lower may very well care if they played by the rules.
Granted, I am not sure this is the case, but the possibility does
exist,
Arch
On Tue 12/13/11 1:27 PM , "Ryan Smith" smaragdz at comcast.net sent:
v:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o:*
{behavior:url(#default#VML);} w:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape
{behavior:url(#default#VML);} st1:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
Are we going FAA definition of sunset on this one?
-------------------------
FROM: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org
[mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] ON BEHALF OF Keith
Hoard
SENT: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 7:57 AM
TO: General pattern discussion
SUBJECT: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] NATS 2012
All camping gear weight limits will be strictly enforced when on AMA
property, especially during the Nats. All campsites will be operated
to the letter of the rulebook during the 2012 Nats. When checking in
at AMA HQ, your gear will be measured and weighed, and we will be
sending Intermediate pilots over to your campsite to ensure strict
compliance once in the morning, at sunset, at 2 a.m., and at random
times in between.
Good luck.
Keith Hoard
Collierville, TN
khoard at gmail.com [1]
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 11:52 PM, Toby Email wrote:
How many people tent camped at the last Nats? Thinking about taking
my boys to go camping. Thanks. Toby
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 12, 2011, at 4:19 PM, "Michael S. Harrison" wrote:
I suppose you have all heard my objections to and the pointless
nature of the existing weight limit. In the interest of promoting the
sport and the nationals I would encourage a tolerance level of 8
ounces and weigh the planes at the beginning of the contest and forget
about it until finals day. On that day weigh the finalists and do the
contest. This unfortunately has turned into a weight contest-not a
flying contest. I have heard all the arguments about how easy it is
to make weight and it is easy to build light aircraft…blah, blah
blah., well, I disagree and the weight rule is pointless. It does
not affect anything to have a little heavier aircraft, and in most
instances is much safer to have aircraft that are a little heavier but
much stronger ,thus much safer.
As event director, you can implement mods to the rules for the above
reasons-promote the sport, safety and whatever else.
I very much support FAI, but they pretty much have blown us off as
far as input but they sure don’t blow off our serious financial
support. I disagree with them on this point and I have discussed the
issue with a few of them including the head of CIAM and they gave me
absolutely no compelling argument for the restrictive weight rule.
I would encourage you minimize your manpower usage in that area. I
would never want that job.
M2c
Mike
FROM: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [4]
[mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [5]] ON BEHALF OF
Archie Stafford
SENT: Monday, December 12, 2011 1:39 PM
TO: General pattern discussion; General pattern discussion
SUBJECT: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] NATS 2012
Ron,
I certainly understand there are challenges, and I'm also almost
certain that these challenges can be worked through, especially if we
maybe only end up weighing once per day or something. We are working
on the logistics now and will have a better plan after the first of
the year. The rules will be followed though and after calibrating the
scales there will not be allowances above the rules. If an airplane is
weighed and comes in heavy, we will recalibrate the scales and verify
they were correct. My gut feeling is that not many planes will have a
problem and constant recalibration will not be necessary. We may
find this is not necessarily the case, but I would be surprised if it
is as I have played with the scales I have and after many weights of
differing amounts the calibration seems to hold true. My plan is
after a flight the pilot brings the plane back to a tent area, much
like the worlds and the plane will be weighed there. If the plane is
under weight, nothing else happens and his scores will be submitted to
the score keeper. If the plane is over weight the site director will
come inside the tent area and verify the over weight plane. Obviously
in this case the scales would be recalibrated. If the plane is still
overweight the pilot will receive a zero score for that round, but
will be allowed to fly his next round. A pilot could if he wanted
fail every weight check, and just get no scores for those rounds. I
have no doubt there will be growing pains involved, but my hope is
that if pilots know 8 months in advance that they will be weighed that
they will take the steps necessary to ensure the aircraft is under
weight prior to arriving in Muncie. I understand logistically this
may pose some problems, but we do have quite a bit of man power
available with intermediate pilots now being part of the judging pool.
Granted, they would not be able to do this during the time they are
flying, but then we would only need 3 additional people per day, which
we can take from the other classes. Having spoken to many people
involved, we don't see that there is any reason why we should not be
able to do this with adequate planning. I have verified that we have
access to the tents that were used at the worlds and one will be setup
at each location on Sunday before the pilots meeting to allow pilots
to verify the weight of their aircraft. If a pilot chooses not to
take advantage of this opportunity it is on them.
Arch
On Mon 12/12/11 1:52 PM , Ronald Van Putte wrote:
All I can say about weighing every airplane at processing and maybe
after every flight is: good luck.
John Fuqua and I did all the weighing at the at the F3A WC last
year. There were 82 contestants and many had two airplanes. We
weighed every one of them at processing. That's a lot of weighing.
Then, we weighed every electric-powered airplane after every flight.
In addition, we weighed the glow-powered airplanes whose owners were
unlucky to pull the "wrong" ball after each flight. We worked from
the prelims through the finals and neither of us want to do it again.
We were particularly unhappy that a weight tolerance was given, even
though we provided accurate scales and calibration weights with
certification papers. What was done appeared to be counter to F3A
rules. I understand why a weight tolerance will be given to
Intermediate pilots, but hope the the 5000 gram limit will apply to
all the rest of the competitors.
Ron Van Putte
On Dec 12, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Archie Stafford wrote:
Hello everyone. I trust that everyone is anxiously awaiting a shiny
new pattern plane or gizmo arriving at Christmas this year. I realize
we are a ways away from the NATS 2012, but its never too early to
start communicating. The official entry forms are now online at the
following link.
http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/nats/entryforms.aspx [7] Entry
forms will still be mailed to those who attended last year, but for
anyone wishing to get a jump on things and get registered now you can
download the entry form and send them in. I plan to start putting out
monthly status updates after the first of the year so that everyone
knows where things stand. I have a great group of people who have
volunteered to help and everything is coming together very nicely.
A few things worth mentionings are that the banquet will be held the
night before the finals this year. It will be held on site at the
banquet area at the museum and will be catered. Final catering details
have not been finalized yet. At this banquet, the Masters and FAI
finalists will be announced and flight orders drawn. This is possible
this year due to the rule change that there will no longer be an
unknowns meeting per the new FAI rules. The unknowns will be created
by the Event Director and handed out to the finalists at the banquet.
This will also allow the Intermediate and Advanced winners to be
announced in front of the entire group.
Another item to be aware of is that EVERY airplane will be weighed
this year. We are still finalizing plans on the most efficient way to
do this, but be aware that every airplane will be weighed this year
and it will be after a flight. Ideally they will be weighed after
every flight, but at least once a day is my goal. We learned a lot
from how it was done at the worlds last year and this should not be
difficult to do as we have intermediate pilots who no longer work
transmitter impound that we can use as well as some other people
involved. As I said, the plans are not finalized, but we are working
very hard on them and after the first of the year I will let everyone
know what we have come up with as a final plan. My goal is to stay in
contact with everyone so that no one can say they didn't know.
One other important piece of information are the cut off deadlines.
They will be strictly enforced. They have been moved slightly closer
to the actual start of the NATS, but no entries after the final
deadline will be accepted. No exceptions. One change though is that up
until the final cut off we will be able to issue refunds. We will not
be able to issue the refund from the AMA part of the entry fee, but
the NSRCA part of the fee will be refunded.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in Muncie in July.
Please limit discussions to useful information regarding this
thread. Also, if you have a complaint on how things have been done, I
am more than open to listen, but please have ideas on how to correct
these issues.
Archie Stafford
2012 Pattern NATS ED
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Links:
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[1] mailto:khoard at gmail.com
[2] mailto:torqueroller2000 at yahoo.com
[3] mailto:drmikedds at sbcglobal.net
[4] mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org
[5] mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org
[6] mailto:vanputte at cox.net
[7] http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/nats/entryforms.aspx
[8] mailto:NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
[9] http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
[10] mailto:NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
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