Very Important Message: 2023 CLPA NATS

[Mark Weiss]

Event Director John Paris and I participated in a Zoom Meeting last night with AMA Competition Director Tony Stillman and about 28 others representing AMA and our SIG Group, PAMPA, as well as the others who compete at the NATS. The meeting was to discuss a schedule for 2023 as well as other items, such as the 100th anniversary of the NATS and the 50th for PAMPA. To make a  100 minute meeting much shorter, the AMA proposed that we begin Sunday, July 9, and conclude Friday, July 14. This eliminates our traditional Saturday where we fly the Top 5 and then the Walker Trophy. While I do not like the idea of losing a day, we could live with it if weather cooperates.

However, reps from other SIG's wanted their schedules changed. The end result was a recommendation to start the 2023 Nats about June 22 with RC Scale and CL Scale. Three days later, our week would commence, in June. To me and John, this is not in our best interests in any way, and therefore, not acceptable.

1. We have flown before in June and subjected ourselves to very high winds. AMA admitted two years ago that us flying in June was a big mistake.

2. Starting in late June eliminates many if not all of our Jr and Sr pilots who have school commitments

3. Already 2 of our Top 5 pilots informed me they would not attend if we are forced to fly in June

4. The second week in July has been our 7 day week for many years. We deserve that week

5. After last year's cancellation on our final day, we were under the impression we would be treated to a higher standard.

There are many more valid reasons why we cannot agree to fly in June. Our PAMPA Executive Council were all greatly disappointed and angered in that recommendation!

If anyone reading this message also feels that our NAT's week should be where it always has been, please let me know ASAP. The AMA Board is scheduled to decide on the final Schedule by October 10, 2022! You can also respectfully send an email to Tony Stillman. It was not his idea to have us fly in June, but he had no issues with it if all agreed. John and I did not agree. Tony's email is:  Tonys@modelaircraft.org

Please help us protect what we have worked so hard at since the NATS came to Muncie in 1996.

[Brett Buck]

3. Already 2 of our Top 5 pilots informed me they would not attend if we are forced to fly in June

   Make that a possible 3, because the chances of having another unflyable contest are too high to make sense to drive 5100 mile round trip an Biden-era gas prices.

     Brett

[Howard Rush]

I’d prefer July, but if you are arguing the case before a reasonable person, I suggest that you show actual data that support your argument.

[Mark Weiss]

Hi Howard,

If the wind is completely dropped out of the argument, 3-5 of the Top 5 will not come. Our Jr and Sr pilots will not be able to come. It is too early in the year for those who live in colder climates, like our ED, John Paris. They promised me significant changes and apologized for what happened last July. Well, I made an assumption those changes would be in our best interests. I was wrong.

I am going to do all I can to have our July 9 week be ours for the NATS. I will continue to treat folks with respect and try to have them see the light. I am hopeful this can be worked out but there are only 5 days before their board approves the final NATS schedule. We deserve to be treated not better then the others but certainly equally. That is simply not the case.

[Dave Harmon]

Years ago the NSRCA sig (Pattern) was having problems with AMA so NSRCA started having their own Pattern NATS at different location(s) with not only better weather but the contest was run by NSRCA members that had ownership of the contest.
Also....different locations spread around the country.
Something to think about.

Over the years it has worked out pretty well although the last couple of years Pattern has been flown at the AMA location.

[Brett Buck]

I’d prefer July, but if you are arguing the case before a reasonable person, I suggest that you show actual data that support your argument.

   I am not making an argument, and I am not trying to convince anyone. I encourage everyone to make their own decisions when it comes up how numb they want their butts to get, given their notion of how much fun might be when they get there.

      Brett

   
 

[Brett Buck]

I am going to do all I can to have our July 9 week be ours for the NATS. I will continue to treat folks with respect and try to have them see the light. I am hopeful this can be worked out but there are only 5 days before their board approves the final NATS schedule. We deserve to be treated not better then the others but certainly equally. That is simply not the case.

   I thought your alternate plan sounded pretty good, 5700 VS 5100 miles is not prohibitive.

     Brett

[Derek Barry]

  There are a few other things going on behind the scenes that need to be addressed.  On top of losing a day from our schedule,  the AMA is proposing that whatever dates we get for 2023, will be ours for all future Nats. This sounds good until you realize that they mean the actual dates. So, if we get July 9-14 this year, those will be our dates forever.  It doesn't matter if the 9th is a Wednesday. We would start on Wednesday and end on the following Tuesday. For people who work, and have to schedule vacation, this will be a nightmare.  It will be even more difficult to recruit volunteers.

 Every solution that the AMA has offered us in response to the travesty of this past Nats has been the opposite of what we need or want.

We wanted a conversation about Brenda, and some reassurance that the situation would never happen again. They blew a bunch of smoke up our ass, and made her the Control Line Manager for 2023. Nothing was addressed,  and they didn't even have the courtesy to inform Mark before broadcast during the zoom meeting. 

We needed more time, or at least full.use of the 7 days we had. They took a day away.

Personally,  I think the AMA wants to kill the Nats, and become strictly an insurance company.  They are off to a good start.

If you're a Nats competitor, or you plan on being one in the future, please reach out to the guy Mark provided an email for. He needs to know that we are against these potential changes.

Derek

[Derek Barry]

   I thought your alternate plan sounded pretty good, 5700 VS 5100 miles is not prohibitive.

     Brett

That would land you somewhere near Greenville, SC.

Derek.

[Brendan Eberenz]

As you bring up June 22 kicking off the start of things in 2023, I immediately think of the Brodak Fly-In that would conclude June 17th and always ends the weekend of Father's Day. As I understand it, Brodak's is one of the best attended CL events in the country. It is also about 5 hours away from Muncie and therefore attracts some of the same pool of participants that are within a reasonable distance from the events. To establish the NATs dates on a reoccurring basis so close to the Brodak Fly-In sounds like a lot of people will have to pick and choose which one that they want to attend. If both occur in June, people will have to give up two separate weeks in June to fully enjoy them. I ultimately think it would hurt both events.

[Brett Buck]

That would land you somewhere near Greenville, SC.

  What an odd coincidence! 

  From my perspective, it's 2 and a half hard days to get to the Mississippi river, everything beyond might as well be the same, for purposes of planning. In this entirely hypothetical case, it takes longer to get across the state of Texas than it would take to get from Texas to South Carolina. No one who hasn't done it can fully grasp the enormity of driving all the way across the country. I start feeling claustrophobic in the supposed wide open spaces of Iowa.

     For reference, some places considered "way out west" - Cheyenne, Denver, Albuquerque - are actually on the edge of the great plains/midwest, not in the west proper. From Cheyenne, it's another 1200 miles/day and a half, at 80 mph, before you get to the Pacific Ocean. It's about halfway to Muncie from here.

     Brett

[Dave_Trible]

Should be mentioned all this is to accommodate the IRCHA helicopter world champs... HELICOPTERS?  They must buy more magazines.

Dave

[Brett Buck]

Should be mentioned all this is to accommodate the IRCHA helicopter world champs... HELICOPTERS?  They must buy more magazines.

   Haven't you heard, Dave? Drones are our future.  And, in fact, I am sure they do buy much more ad space. Of course, you might ask yourself why a supposed "academy", operating a non-profit community education organization, and existing to support amateur competition, cares about ad revenue.

     Brett

[RC Storick]

Not that anyone would miss me but if the nats are in June count me out. Might as well buy a $200 cigar smoke it after a $200 dollar dinner and call it good. Too windy here in June.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ken Culbertson]

Here is the text of the email I sent.  I have been trying for the last three years to arrange my life so that I could start attending the NATs again.  We have to start looking for alternatives.  We are an ever-shrinking discipline, and this is just the opening shot at killing us off.  As far as I can tell we only need the AMA for insurance and membership in the FAI.  Anyway, here is my 2 cents:

I have been in this hobby for over 60 years and flying CL, mostly Stunt for all of it.  I am finally partly retired and able to start attending the NATs again.  The proposals you are putting forth for our schedule are simply unacceptable and if you go through with them, you may kill CLPA(Stunt) off as an AMA Nats event.  The permanent dates you are suggesting make it impossible for planning vacations.  Most vacation schedules include a FULL week, not parts of two.  Jr and Sr are still in school in some parts and much of the country is still in late winter.  I lived just east of Muncie for much of my early life and the weather for flying stunt doesn't really start till July.  Moving the NATS even a couple of weeks really handicaps our top fliers who have the misfortune of living in the northern states.

If you are trying to kill us off, you are succeeding, and I understand that nothing we have to say is going to matter if that is your intent.  We were thoroughly screwed in 2022.  Promises were made to make it better.  Your response to "making it better" so far is to 1. Put the same person back in charge of us that caused the mess, 2. take away one of our days and move the event to a time frame that you have acknowledged in the past was wrong and, 3. make the event span two weeks instead of one.  Would someone please enlighten me how this is better?

One thing I truly do not understand is why specific dates instead of weeks is even under consideration.

As a former CD I am fully aware of the difficulties in scheduling contests but moving us around to accommodate newer events is just not right.

Ken Culbertson - 15382

RC - I will miss you.  Your coverage is all I have to make me feel better not being able to be there myself.  I am 100% sure others feel the same way.

[Doug Moon]

Should be mentioned all this is to accommodate the IRCHA helicopter world champs... HELICOPTERS?  They must buy more magazines.

Dave

Dont knock it until you have tried it. Their numbers are dwindling some as well in the Biden-era economy. RC Helicopters at the highest levels are not cheap by any means. There are drones there but they are only for filming. No one really cares about them at the IRCHA Jamboree. Too each their own right?

Here is a link to the 2021 Jamboree that was held at Muncie.

https://www.modelaviation.com/ircha-jamboree-2021

The scale stuff is amazing.

They love their event just like we love ours. But one will note their 2021 event had 400 pilots and who knows how many spectators. Probably 2000 people total. They put on a pretty big night show and it has a HUGE draw from pretty much all over. They also gave away over $30,000 in prizes to both registered pilots and volunteers.

Pre-covid it was estimated over 5000 people total, pilots, families, and spectators would attend that event. That does not include the huge vendor turnout. They bring stuff to sell and new items coming out in the future and many people travel to get good deals and check it out. They usually hold the event later to get away from Nats scheduling but if there is a WCs coming then they don't have control over that. IRCHA would run it here as the SIG like PAMPA is. It is a big deal and they do more than buy magazines.

The Nats helicopter event barely has a draw now because they would rather attend IRCHA afterward.

There will always be a WCs of some sort in the planning and scheduling. The AMA site is the best in the world for all forms of Aeromodeling. The more that come there the better. The more these hobby flourish the better off we are.

June is bad for controline in Muncie for sure. What should we do? How do you propose we schedule it differently? Are we the only discipline that is effected?

If y'all want a different CL Manager for the nats step right up an apply. You know the drill in this hobby, you want it done then volunteer and do it yourself. Until she doesn't want to it anymore they WONT fire her. It's just one less spot they have to fill. 

[John Paris]

Everyone,
Just got off the phone with Mark.  He heard back from Tony Stillman at the AMA that we will start the CLPA events as originally scheduled on 9 Jul 23.  The current end point is Friday the 14th per the schedule.  Good to hear we are confirmed for midish July.  More to follow.
John

[Doug Moon]

Everyone,
Just got off the phone with Mark.  He heard back from Tony Stillman at the AMA that we will start the CLPA events as originally scheduled on 9 Jul 23.  The current end point is Friday the 14th per the schedule.  Good to hear we are confirmed for midish July.  More to follow.
John

WELL DONE!!!   

[Allen Goff]

The part about possibly making schedule changes to the Nats was nothing more than getting a feel for what others would think about this idea. Nobody was going to get moved to June. A lot of heat and energy has been wasted here. I spent an hour and a half with Tony and Colleen today working on reinstating F4 scale back into AMA’s library. This topic was mentioned and it appears this was just a fact finding meeting. Relax and exhale we aren’t moving anywhere.


Blessings

[Ken Culbertson]

Everyone,
Just got off the phone with Mark.  He heard back from Tony Stillman at the AMA that we will start the CLPA events as originally scheduled on 9 Jul 23.  The current end point is Friday the 14th per the schedule.  Good to hear we are confirmed for midish July.  More to follow.
John

Glad to hear this.  I may not be able to attend this one but I want it there when I can finally get back to the NATs.  Thanks for your hard work!  If I reacted to what I was reading too quickly I hope that it at least made the point that we are listening.

Ken

[John Paris]

Everyone,
As an additional update we have been told that we can have access to the site (Site 1) as early as 6 July which is as it has been in the past.  Perhaps we start things a little earlier to be sure we can get done by Friday.  PAMPA has already formed a committee to explore scheduling options and as soon as we have something finalized it will be shared.
John

[Mark Weiss]

Allen, my job is to protect our interests. When Tony shared that if everyone was in agreement, we would start the Nats in June. I was the only one to object.

I enjoyed chatting with you this morning as well as getting the extra 3 days prior to our normal starting day, Sunday. Take care of your knee....Mark

[Allen Goff]

Looking forward to 2023 Nats

Blessings

[mike londke]

AMA has just taken Saturday away from any F2 group that needs the site and it will NEVER be given back. A slippery slope that will lead to more days being taken in the future. Not good guys......

[Ken Culbertson]

Much to my surprise I got a very positive reply to my Email to Tony Stillman yesterday evening.  It was very reassuring to know that they do listen to us folks that populate the cheap seats.  If all goes as he proposes, we are not going to get screwed.  Now, for me it is time to sit back and let our leaders work this out.  I am rather confident that the deal we get will be the best deal we could have gotten.

Ken

[Brett Buck]

AMA has just taken Saturday away from any F2 group that needs the site and it will NEVER be given back. A slippery slope that will lead to more days being taken in the future. Not good guys......

   That is jumping to a conclusion, we ran this schedule for a few years in the 2000s, then we changed back.

     As is our tendency, I think we are tending to read more into these situations/reports than there might be, and particularly, jumping to conclusions about everyone's motives. I wouldn't want to sugar-coat what has happened the last two years, I think both situations were bad, but you have to guard against seeing conspiracies in just random events.

   And in fact, there is absolutely no question what happened this year, and it didn't seem to be part of any concerted plan, just an unfortunate snap decision. From an organizational/administrative standpoint, I am far more irritated with 2021 (and expressed my concern according, when asked).

   So, summarizing the facts to date, they gave an option to move it to June*, John and Mark objected, and we are shifting the schedule one day so we can go in July. Seems like a solved problem. My experience has been that I can barely remember what day of the week it is anyway, Monday through Sunday is really "Appearance point day, Practice Day, Qualifying day 1, Qualifying day 2, Top 20 day, and Flyoff day"

     Brett

*I also note that the June date appears to have also put Scale and the rest of CL back near each other, back-to-back, instead of a month apart. The recent schedule has had them widely separated due to the overflight issue, proper scheduling of RC scale would solve that problem and allow people to fly in both CL events with one trip. Take a nearly two straight months of such decisions with other groups who are just as passionate about it as we are, you might begin to see the issue, everybody wants theirs, and those will inevitably conflict. Dave had a point about the helicopters, it is not even an AMA National Championship event, and that is a fair question why that would take priority. On the other hand, at least they won't be flying over the circles and crashing on the road by the L-pad. Probably.