Please Read the Current BOM Rule 1st

[john e. holliday]

All this is, how do I say it?  I was just thinking about stock car racing.  In the early days guys would strip a car down and go race.  You had to if you were going to race.  A friends dad told many times how they would drive to the track.  Roll down the windows and tape up the lights.  Race all night/evening, if they won the race a trophy was presented to them in which they had to return it before going home.   Has stock car racing died because someone started building card for someone else to drive and compete with?  Yes there are guys/gals that still build their own race cars to race on local circuits all over the country.  Now to model airplanes this probably nothing to really do with it.  Of course there are those making a living off of model airplanes.  A few are doing it with competition model airplanes.   I still contend that those that like to build will still build their own planes.  Some will never build a model airplane, but, they will buy and fly.  The powers to be in all of model airplanes need to come up with a definate wording on what really constitutes a BUILDER OF THE MODEL.  It also need to be enforcible.  Enough said,  DOC Holliday

[Bob Reeves]

This is a cool thread, for the most part, everyone seems to be keeping a level head.

I have seen first hand a couple points brought up.. We have two guys in our club that I would guarantee wouldn't still be enthusiastic about competing if it wasn't for ARC/ARF's and other peoples airplanes.. They just do not have the time to take a year and build a stunt ship. Both these guys are younger than most of us and are going to be the ones that carry on after we are gone.. I would sure think this should tell us what the future holds and that Brad is right on the money.

Second, As hard as it is to admit the best flying ship in my fleet is an ARF. I have two stunt ships that took me a year each to build and finish but never have been real happy with either. Admittedly the big problem is with power, I picked the right engine for the ARF because it was easy to throw together and try something new. It just happened to work and work well..

I'm not real happy with the ARF's finish and don't believe it will hold up past this season so am planning on building a BOM ship almost exactly like it with the same engine over the winter. I would probably do this even if the BOM rule goes away. Pretty points or not, I know I can build a better and lighter airframe than the ARF.

Conclusion is we have 3 guys that odds are would not be competing if it weren't for ARF's.. How can that be a bad thing?