Ron:

You have expressed exactly what lots of people have within this site since it was erected. There is a great deal of mis-understanding with respect to flying scale competition. "The" point is to replicate a scale mission through maneuvers which were used by the full scale aircraft...referred to as prototypical.

The pilot's choice of flight maneuvers beyond the basic take-off, straight flight past, figure eight, and landing....that being an additional five are all it takes to compete.

For example, a non-aerobatic model need only fly a decending 360 degree circle, chandelle, an aborted landing, flight through a rectangular circuit and procedure turn to compete. Anyone who flys an rc model flys these maneuvers during the course of their weekend flight.

Competition is something so misunderstood. You don't compete with anyone else during a scale contest. You simply fly a flight plan to the best of your ability following the published flight maneuver descriptions and illustrations. If you are interested in bookmarking flight resources, click here: then save to your favorites http://www.scaleaero.com/flitecomp.htm

The judges simply compare your flight maneuver to the same published instructions and noted faults scoring your maneuver on a scale which begins with 10 points and deductions are taken when the maneuver faults are witnessed in varing degrees of less than perfect after taking into account the type of aircraft and the weather conditions during the maneuver.

The static competition resource section is here:
http://www.scaleaero.com/static.htm

For a brief overview brochure...click here:
http://www.scaleaero.com/WGOH_Side_One.htm

Hope you will join us flying our flight plans soon.

 Guess how I voted?

   Simply put, once you get past the idea that you are being critisied (you are) scale flying in competition as well as the building aspect of it, increases your skills at every level. This increase in your abilities and allows you to enjoy the hobby far, far more in my opinion. You never know what you can do until you try. And you will never grow if you don't use some sort of "tool" to measure where you are now and where you want to go. Scale competition IS that tool. It may not be for everyone since there are different levels of "involvement" in this hobby, but I have been rewarded far more than I would have ever realised had I not started.

  And don't forget, just because you compete doesn't mean you can't still go out and fly free-style, aerobatic, pylon or just punch holes in the sky - you'll just do it a whole lot better.

For a long time I thought I didn't want to get into scale competition.  Basically, I didn't know enough about it, there was no one in my area that I knew of that was into it (boy was I wrong on that one...for years I had Dino and Dean DiGiorgio living a stones through from my home and didn't know it...we were in different clubs and one had a rule that you couldn't belong to another club within a 50 mile radius or some such thing)  It was only about a year and a half before Dino passed away that I had the pleasure of meeting him...Dean was already gone south...man what I could have learned from those two guys!

So, now here I am...my flight skills are shot to heck basically due to lack of flying time because of health issues.  So right, I have more time to build...true, but it's not an advantage.  What I used to be able to do in a week, now takes me months, which in itselt isn't a problem...just that I have been doing some building for others, very patient folks for the most part.  However, I am thinking about taking a year or two off from building for other people to concentrate on a couple of my own projects.

With that being said...I am very slowly working on plans for a Russian Petlyakov Pe-2 in 1:4 scale...almost 170" ws, and also an Ilyushin Il-2 Stormovik in 1:4 scale 140" + ws.   I think I would prefer to get into scale competition with my own design?   Maybe I will do another kit to get started with though...I've been weighing the pros and cons of both scenarios and I don't really know enough I reckon to come to a decision.  Any help here guys?

I also think that if I do my own plans, it will give me a much better excuse when it take 3 or more years to come to fruition

Okay, another stopper for myself and I'm sure some others is the expense...most of these things aren't in our backyards...at least not in mine anyway.  It costs $$ besides the cost of the airplane...fuel to get there an back, associated fees..landing fees???  Motel if its more than a one day thing.  And...last but not least...lot's of us have wives...ya know that beautiful woman who can put the kibosh on our best laid plans in a heart beat

Enlighten me/us!

Boy do I have  a gift for you....below is an explicit maneuver created for the Ilyushin Il-2 Stormovik. It was designed to provide an anti-tank fan of cannon
fire to the rear of the German Tanks as they moved forward.

No..s, this is a legit flight maneuver for use in competition. If you are serious in your or anyone else's desire to learn more about competitive flying scale modeling in the US... The hyper-links within my post above will provide you a complete overview with resources supported with graphs we've developed over the last six years.

Any questions? Contact me via email at wclayman@houston.rr.com if anyone is honestly interested in competing at the local level as we expand not only the AMA/USSMA but the RCSB scale events.