It's not a debate. If you want to build, then build. If you don't, then don't. My only point is some folks believe that you are somehow inferior if you don't build. Personally, I get enjoyment out of building. But I am not going to degrade someone that just wants to fly an ARF, ARC or a model built by someone else. I personally could care less about the BOTM rule either way.
No one "degrading" anyone. The rules say exactly what is required and exactly what the event is supposed to be about. It's been that way since the inception, and it has never been otherwise for at least 65 years. The point of the event is to build your own airplane and then compete with it, period. Over and over the participants have indicated that this is exactly how they want it to be.
We are quite intentionally trying to make flying for a National Championship fundamentally different from activities like bike riding, tennis, golf, where you go buy something, then kill time on a Sunday afternoon with no commitment. It's no accident, it's is a clear decision, we understand the argument, but don't buy it.
And it certainly is a debate. Starting about 15 years ago, there has been a concerted effort by people who want to be commercial builders and their minions to spin up the BOM argument. The purpose is to make it possible to custom-build hideously expensive models for rich people to fly at the NATs. That makes a terrible arguing point, so what they do instead is to talk about "access" and "inclusiveness" for Joe Bellcrank. Joe Bellcrank has been able to fly any model they want from any source since 1974, aside from National Championship. But it makes a better argument because no one actually cares about their real goal.
The ARF/ARC/RTF/OPP pilots, while still a small fraction of the participants, are always welcome at local and regional contests and are not discriminated against in any way other than appearance points. They don't deserve scoring credit for building their airplane but that is only, at most, 20 points out of 635 or something like that and it doesn't make any consequential difference in the results at local contests. So, aside from the National Championships, no one is excluded. You can use your analogy (buying an airplane and competing with it) at any contest in the world ASIDE from the National Championship. And in fact, we even (questionably in my opinion) have Advanced class at the NATs, so you can become "Advanced National Champion" with a bought airplane at each and every NATs. You get to stand out there with the Junior, Senior, and Open Top5 winners and get a large perpetual trophy.
I would also note that CLPA is one of the few competition events that has retained the BOM and maintained participation. Most of the other CL events have dropped the BOM to "enhance participation" and either because of in spite of that, still ground to a halt. Same with RC for the most part. Ted Fancher and I did a single NATS practice session in 2007, down on the grass pad at Muncie, while the ENTIRE Fast Combat event was run. With *3* entrants, a double-elimination contest (or maybe triple) took about 2 hours from start to finish.
So this debate is spun up every couple of months, and the die-hard anti-modeling/buy and fly types jump in and sputter and make specious emotional arguments. In this case, you may have inadvertently stepped into this suspicious brown substance, but it is most certainly a debate, it is very heated at times and certainly has NOTHING to do with the general topic of this thread.
There are plenty of other threads about BOM, might want to review those to gauge the level of anger present, then decide for yourself whether you have a new take on the topic that in some way addresses the counter-arguments.
Brett
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