Maybe just leaving it as is and letting anyone with a BOM legal plane enter Open is the best we can do.
"Leaving it as is" is the key take-away. We have always accommodated foreign competitors that were willing to comply with our rules, that's why there were something like 120 entries at the 2004 NATs.
Unlike objectively-judged events, stunt requires particular principles to minimize the chances of improper (either intentional or not) influence or fatigue on the results . That is fundamentally different than other events. That is why it is no issue and does not compromise the results to have any number of TR or speed contests - a stopwatch doesn't care what you did last week. Stunt is entirely different.
The NATs format and principles that we came up with over the last 70ish years have been geared to maximizing the likelihood that the score reflects only the craftsmanship and appearance of the model, and the accuracy of the pattern, with recognition of the various factors you cannot control and do not represent error in the assessment (like the high judge/low judge effect, which is by far the biggest, and the round length limits to reduce ballooning and minimize weather effects - and not kill all the judges in the process). Knowing the results of one contest might very well influence the next, even knowing what the score was for one flight can easily influence the next. That's why the judges are told and held to the standard that they are not to look at the scores, the scoreboard, or anything else, at any point during the contest. The only way they know what they and the other judges have done is who shows up during the next round of eliminations
The lack of the same principles applied to FAI is why we (not the royal "we", most of the US stunt community) objects so strenuously to the FAI World Champs procedures/format/principles, because they do not adhere to obvious and well-tried principles we use every year. Apparently precisely *because* we are the ones who came up with it. The existing two-circle format is probably better than the utterly ridiculous one-circle trudge to oblivion that we all saw first-hand in 2004, but it was a compromise for a proper format (however many circles it takes to keep the round length around 3 hours), along with several other "agreements" that the FAI brain trust later reneged on after agreeing to it, including an agreement to run the 2004 WC in a proper format.
That's why it is different and after repeated "compromises" at the NATs for the last 3 years, and the "end around" most of stunt community to get the 2024 World Championship in the same old format, the interest in trying to compromise the NATS even further to sneak in yet another contest that ALSO further compromises sound judging principles is just beyond the pale.
I also assume that it would further burden the organizers to replace their days off in between the NATs and the World Champs with a "fun-fly contest" where they have to spend two more full days at the site. Because there aren't an infinite number of people available, we already are asking them for far too much to do the (ill-considered) existing plan. You can have world cup any time, anywhere in the USA. No one does it because no one cares about it to make the effort.
My suggestion was the flip the order and do the WC first, then the NATs .because the NATS will now look a lot like a WC warmup. This will drive people to try to push the limits to fly their accursed RTFs in the NATs, bringing the matter of DQing large numbers of competitors because of attempted BOM cheating to a head. I think that is far too big a chance to take, but apparently we are dead set on it. And in any case, the AMA NATs is not the Triple-A baseball of stunt, it is the main event, not a warm-up or practice event.
Brett
Topic: World Championships and AMA Nats for 2024? (Read 21611 times)