Methinks the lady doth protest too loudly... :)
Most of the rules we have are subject to sportsmanship by the contestants. No "official" timers - who makes sure the time isn't cheated. How about the no shed parts on landing - most contests don't have landing area judges scouring the LZ for parts. How about the no countdown rule? How about the nose radius rule? etc. etc. This happens to be a particular hotbutton for you so you find it necessary to describe why THIS rule might not be enforced when most of our rules at the average contest are ALL enforced by sportsmanship. I can say that as a CD for quite a few local contests and having participated in nearly every contest our club has held in the last 5 years (with 20+ flyers per contest) I have never seen this to be a problem. In fact I have never seen a single report of someone illegally switching planes. Could it happen - sure. Is it a big problem - I don't think so. While I agree that it is a stupid rule, it is a rule and as far as I can tell it has been generally followed and respected.
I do know that as a CD and a responsible club member I am as much concerned with fairness as I am the letter of the rules. For example I have let 2 novice flyers fly the same airplane in a contest because one did not have a decent ship. If the AMA police see this confession I may be stripped of my CD status (would that be a bad thing?) but having fun and fairness are the main rules at my contests.
So do the right thing - submit a rules change proposal through your soaring board representative and lobby for the rule to be changed. That would be more productive than debating the ways one COULD subvert the current rule.
Respectfully, Jim Monaco
Rocky Mountain Soaring Association
CD, Newsletter Editor, Scorekeeper, Webmaster and the idiot that typically gets asked all the rules questions.
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com.
RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
