Hi Keith,
Ergo, there will be no effect on the Walker Cup for at least 2 1/2 years. Sort of makes your "As long as the Walker Cup is the ultimate prize, there will be an Open event at the Nats and it will be as meaningful and hotly contested..." assurance sound a bit hollow. Also a lot different from Randy's "no effect" on 322 declaration to me.
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Ted
Ted,
Obviously, I did not make mayself clear regarding the current BOM rule, the current BOM rule change proposals, this Expert at the Nats proposal, and then I further obfuscated the matter by talking about the Walker Cup and what might happen if the BOM rule is ever removed from our CLPA rulebook. It is clear that you did not understand what I was trying to say.
I think it best to explain to you that there have been several rules change proposals in this rules change cycle regarding the BOM rule that applies to our CLPA event. Several of those proposals were not approved for any further consideration. Two other proposals were approved for further consideration and there has been a cross proposal submitted for each of those two basic proposal for further consideration by the Contest Board during their Interim Vote procedure next month. These proposals and their cross proposals retain a BOM rule tailored for our CLPA event rather than the dated rule (from the 50's) that currently applies to CLPA found in the AMA General rules. The Contest Board will choose one of these proposals or will vote each of them out in the mid-August Interim vote. Whatever the outcome of that vote, and then if one proposal survives the interim vote, there will be a final vote in September. There will either be a change to our BOM rule which will be included in the CLPA rulebook or we will continue with the current AMA General BOM rule. Either way, there will still be a BOM rule for our CLPA event. Therefore, we will have a BOM requirement for at least the next 2 1/2 years which puts us at the end of the next rules change cycle. This has nothing whatsoever to do with adding the Expert event at the Nats or anticipating that the Expert event at the nats will somehow jeopardize the current or any future CLPA BOM rule. Somehow you seem to have confused this with the Expert at the Nats proposal. I guess that is my fault because I was writing about both subjects in the same post.
Now, and I do not want to sound like I am speaking for you, but I think that you and I agree that, sometime in the future,
IF the BOM requirement is eliminated completely from our CLPA rulebook, then the matter of the Walker Cup completely changes in character. If there is no BOM, then the Walker Cup would no longer represent the model airplane stunt event as it has for the past 60 plus years where it has been required that the model be BOM compliant. If that happens, the Walker Cup should be retired to the AMA museum and it will be up to the PAMPA leadership, if there still is a PAMPA at that time, to initiate whatever new tradition they see fit to do.
(Is it possible that the BOM rule could be eliminated? Absolutely!! I do not have to remind you that there is a very vocal minority that has been trying to eliminate the CLPA BOM rule for years. Until this change cycle, there have been proposals to eliminate the CLPA BOM for at least the past 12 to 16 years. Obviously, these have all failed. But for now, we have a BOM rule of some kind for the next 2 1/2 years.)
Some people are trying to build an argument that having Expert at the Nats will somehow hasten the demise of the BOM rule. To the contrary, I believe that having Expert at the Nats will enhance the arguments to retain the BOM rule. The Walker Cup will be preserved for the National Stunt Champion using the time honored BOM requirement as a prerequisite to enter Event 322 as it always has been. Then, for those who want to compete on a Nationals stage, but to compete with others that are at their local skill level of Expert or choose to compete with a non-BOM model, there is the Expert skill level event at the Nats to do so. Yes, there are those who profess to prefer to fly against others with their local level Expert capability than to lock horns with say the top 15 to 25 fliers in the country. This is evidently a difficult concept to grasp or understand for at least a handful of those in that upper echelon of 15 to 25 top fliers in the country.
It is those same people who believe (I know some do and I used to be in that camp -- as PAMPA President at the time and a recent Nats ED, I was strongly against adding skill classes to the Nats schedule) that the sole purpose of the Nats is to determine the National Stunt Champion and that all of the other activities are superfluous. Our National Stunt event is much more than that as evidenced by the continued support it gets by stunt fliers of all capabilities and by a multitude of volunteers to help run this tremendous event that takes a week to play out.
There, I got on my soapbox and probably further confused the whole matter. All I can ask is that you try not to intentionally misquote and misrepresent what I am trying to say.
I am really sorry that the event no longer holds the allure for you that it once did. In the early 90's, you are the one who brought me back into this event.
Keith