[NSRCA-discussion] NATS 2012

Tue Dec 13 09:59:28 AKST 2011

 

	Ron, 

	I was not referring to the worlds, and while it is possible, at the
last few NATS, it has not been an issue.  I have not asked you or John
for your help in this matter, and while I am more than happy to let
you guys volunteer, you will not have to be the guys doing this.  This
very well may not work and I might end up having to admit after its
over it was a bad idea and I screwed up, but I am willing to take that
chance and at least make the effort to make this work.  There are
several things I have chosen as ED to do differently this year and as
long as we have the rules, I believe we should try to follow them. 
The contest board apparently agrees that the rules should be as they
are and as such they need to be followed as closely as possible.  It
is 9 months prior to the start of the event and I am already working
the logistics of this and as I said, plan to come up with plans to
make this work as smoothly as possible.  I am OK with the possibility
of it being a bad idea and such, and I am willing to accept that risk.
 That being said, other things in the past have worked out OK, and I
think that the people who are competing deserve to know that the
planes they are competing against follow the rules, regardless of
where they may finish.  No one has said that a heavy airplane can't
fly, it just wont be scored for the round it is overweight, so if
someone just wants to come fly and not care where they place, then
they are more than welcome to show up and fly.   

	In regards to the AMA scales being inaccurate, I will deal with that
if that is the case and have someone looking into that as we speak. 
If they are, I have a scale which I know is very accurate, and have
access to a second identical scale, as well as I know where a third
one is.  These are problems that can easily be solved with some
effort.  I will not use the excuse "it is too hard" as being valid for
why something can't be done when I have 9 months to figure out how to
do it.  I do appreciate you letting me know that is the case as I can
now look at solutions to solve that problem, 
	Arch
 On Tue 12/13/11 1:50 PM , Ronald Van Putte vanputte at cox.net sent:
  I can't say that I agree with, "It has been several years since we
have had extremely high temps and or winds."  John Fuqua and I went
through just that at the F3A WC this year in Muncie.  The tents were
HOT inside and we had to erect barricades to isolate the
scales/airplanes from the winds blowing under the tent side shields
and affecting the weight measurement. 
  Ron Van Putte 
    On Dec 13, 2011, at 12:09 PM, Archie Stafford wrote:
	As I stated before, I am still putting together the final logistics
of how this will be done.  It may end up being once a day.  I don't
think that would be that much of a nightmare as you only need to weigh
the plane as it just flew, minus the glow guys removing their fuel. 
It has been several years since we have had extremely high temps and
or winds.  Yes, the possibility exists, but there fans and other ways
around this that can help with this problem.   Over the next few
months, I will work more closely on how to do this effectively,
including working with a local contest in this area to see how it
works in a real world setting.  I don't expect to just show up in
Muncie and say this is how it is done, I want to have gone over each
of these techniques and such to enable the most efficient use of time
and procedures.  
	My point in putting this out there was to let everyone know that the
planes will be weighed and that EVERYONE will be expected to comply
with the weight requirements of their given class. 

	Arch
 On Tue 12/13/11 12:26 PM , Ronald Van Putte  wrote:
  Weighing airplanes is a nightmare.    
  The first is a scale/calibration nightmare.  John Fuqua and I tried
using the new AMA scales to weigh batteries at the F3A WC and the
scales were unbelievably inaccurate, even with the calibration
weights. 
  The second nightmare is how you weigh the airplanes.  Do you weigh
the airplane and batteries together or separate?  All the potential
batteries?  How do you mark airplanes and batteries so you know the
real total airplane weight?  How do you catch "sticker switchers"? 
  Where do you weigh airplanes coming off the flightline?  You need
to have a structure which will keep the sometimes brutal Indiana wind
out.  If you keep the wind out, how do you keep it cool enough to
enable the weighers to survive in the structure where outside it's 90
degrees plus and 90 percent plus relative humidity? 
  I'v e been a Nats event director and I feel that sufficient
weighing should be done to guarantee that no pilot with a heavy
airplane gets a trophy. 
  Ron Van Putte  
  On Dec 13, 2011, at 11:07 AM, John Gayer wrote:
  Keep in mind that the weight rule is not applied at any local
contests, only at the Nats.
 Let's consider the Nats for a moment and assume the attendance is
100 spread out equally in four classes(not exactly the case but close
enough)
 Intermediate- Already gets a weight allowance and I didn't hear any
complaints at the Nats so 100- 25 = 75
 Advanced- Already gets a weight allowance. Again I heard no
complaints so  75 - 25 = 50
 F3A- we have no control over the application of weight rules for FAI
particularly in a team selection year so 50 -25 = 25
 Masters- This is the only class that has to adhere to 5000  grams
under AMA rules. Most Masters pilots that go to the Nats are flying
top of the line aircraft that do make weight anyway. I'm sure there
are a few(less than a handful) nationally that did not go to the Nats
because their plane would not make weight. Perhaps there is also a
handful who did go that ONLY spent the money to make weight  so (25-20
= 5 )+ 5 =10
 So we should change or ignore the rules at the Nats for a few
Masters pilots that might not go to the Nats next year rather than
spend the money to get their airplane to make weight? I don't think
so. 
 Perhaps Arch is a bit overboard with wanting to check every plane
after every flight but weighing every plane at least once and checking
the stickers after each flight seems very reasonable to me. In any
case he has established very early that weighins _will_ be done and
has a plan in place on how to accomplish it. Much better than this
past Nats where we told to make weight and then not checked at all.
 John
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