Looking at the 20011-20012 Fixed Wing Scale Rules I did not see a judging guide for missed approach.  Any suggestions on what it takes to call it a 10.  The LA5 was a fighter with a fair amount of power.  How close to ground should one come before applying power.  Is sloppy good?  It is supposed to be a botched landing.  Is an bounce and go a good plan.  Is a full power steep climb out appropriate?   With the electric power I have instant throttle responce - I can change throttle setting  a little or a lot, as needed. What say you scale judges.
 

John:

Man, this is scary. I was scaring up the documents and Clancy beat me to it. He is correct. Article 10.2 of the AMA rules states "Options may be any maneuver listed in the rule book Under AMA or FAI CL Scale Rules," ... Then, Clancy has provided the FAI description above. I have seen many of the guys use the "Overshoot" maneuver. None of them touched the ground with their airplane.

As to a full power steep climb out, I have heard of at least two WW 2 full size warbirds that were lost due to carburetor icing after an extended power down followed by emergency full throttle while trying to recover from a botched landing. So a full throttle steep climb might not be too scale. I know, picky, picky.

Jim Fruit

Thanks - it all makes sense - make it look like the real thing.

Clancy do you have the link to the FAI F4B Annex 6B - Judges Guide - Control Line Flight page 39, Optional Demonstrations.  For that matter all of the FAI rules for CL.  Can anyone access this stuff.
 

If I read the rules correct Judges should be sitting with the wind at their back.  The missed approach should be right in front of the judges.  On a really windy day this could get tricky - slow speed + up wind side of circle = slack lines.  But if it was easy every body would score 100 on their flight.   

Paul
I cannot find any thing in the AMA or FAI F4B rules that say to "zero the score" if the model touches the ground.  The FAI F4B guide says "under 1 meter for 15 meters.  Touching the ground would definitely be under 1 meter.  As a Judge I would take that into consideration on the "Smoothness of control."

John
Nowhere is there a requirement for a "Steep Climb Out" that I can find.
Clancy

Chuck
That thought agrees with Paul's but the difference IMO between a Missed Approach with a touch and a Touch and Go is the airplane is still flying in the first and must be Not Flying in the Touch and Go.  Remember that the rules require the tail wheel to be down in the Touch and Go.  The scoring for a Touch and Go is double as you are required to do a full landing and then a Take Off with a theoretical taxi in between.

In the FAI F4B Flight Judges Guide Option J Touch and Go:

The sketch says Minimum 5 meters between the Touchdown and the Take off.

Errors:  4.  The roll on the ground is less than five lengths of the model aircraft.

I have pointed this discrepancy out to the FAI committee and at present the written text takes precedent over the sketch.  At present the "Taxi" part must be at least 5 times the length of the model.  For my Taube that would be over 27 Feet in place of 5 meters (16 2/3 Ft.)!

The AMA Rules page SC-12 Para. 4.13: Touch and Go  (Option).  The purpose of the touch-and-go landing with full-scale aircraft is to teach pilots how to land and take off.  The landing is not complete until the airplane is rolliing on all wheels and is under complete ground control by the pilot (steerable tail wheel or nose wheel operating).
Clancy

Quote from Paul Smith - "The name of the maneuver is question is the "OVERSHOOT".   It's one of the hollowest excuses for 10 points in the book.  Pretty near points for nothing."

I have to agree with Paul here, the first time I saw this maneuver done was at a nats many years back while I was fresh out of full scale aviation and I really thought it was Mickey Mouse.  Still do.  (The same goes for the so-called lazy eight in the FAI rules.  The lazy eight is taught to commercial pilot seekers to perfect their use of cross control in the aircraft.  Hmmmm, how can that possibly apply to a control line plane?)

Paul
There is no easy 10 points in this maneuver.  Down grading for Altitude, Distance under 1 meter and aircraft under control should all be reasons for loosing points.

I asked Will Hinton his opinion on this subject as Will OWNED his own flying school.


Will Hinton's Reply:

The touch and go is to be a "normal" landing with roll-out, and if any of my students failed to roll out to a greatly decreased speed, I had them do it again.  The purpose of the full scale maneuver is to get more true approaches with landings in a shorter space of time so the student got more practice at both.  Without a longer roll-out, the landing really can't be evaluated.  If power was applied to soon, it wasn't [possible to "grade" the landing accurately.
With that in mind, under the circumstance you're asking about, it cannot be called a touch and go, either in practicality or according to the rule book.
The book says the model must be rolling on ALL wheels and UNDER COMPLETE CONTROL of the pilot.  I don't see the model being under complete control in the circumstance of hitting or touching the ground in a missed approach attempt.
For the missed approach/overshoot, the maneuver commences when the 1 meter or less is reached, must FLY at least 5 meters, and accelerate SMOOTHLY before climb-out.  I suspect that any pilot touching the ground in this attempt will more than likely bang the throttle and yank it in the air.
In my opinion, if the pilot attempts the missed approach maneuver and touches the ground, he or she failed completely to show successful control of the model, and I, personally, would score it a zero because of the failure to maintain control.  It fails to be a touch and go, and is, instead, a crash & dash.  Just my personal thought on the matter.
If a full scale student was told to "Go around" just before touchdown, and we all did this to our students more than once, if they touched down, they were gently lectured on their lack of proper and safe response and knew they would get the same command again sometime when not expecting it until their response became second nature.  (And effective.)
Allen Goff and John Brodak are reviewing the rules and want to simplify and standardize them, I think this is something that needs to be clarified during that process.  In fact, I'll CC this to Allen.  They will be conferring with other scale fliers on this.  Regardless of whether full scale policies end up being observed or not, the book needs to clarify it to avoid conflict at some time or another.
Blessings,
Will


I have changed my mind.
OK, Zero Points for a "Crash and Dash" in place of a "Missed Approach."
Clancy

The root (original sin) here is cross-referencing AMA rules to FAI.  F4B is dead.  It's dead because the rules were so extreme that there aren't even five nations in the world that can field a team.  In the absence of a World Championship, there' no remaining reason for anybody to use these obsolete rules.

The object of a MISSED APPROACH, GO-AROUND, or OVERSHOOT is to almost land, but abort the landing at the last possible moment, without touching the ground.  My theory is that the committee that wrote the rule considered it an insult to the intelligence to state that a plane doesn't touch the ground on an OVERSHOOT.  I haven't looked, but does the description of a takeoff state that the airplane needs to get off the ground?

The solution is to use the rules change procedure to put the good parts of the F4B rules into the AMA Rule Book and drop the reference to FAI.  This would be a good chance to plug the loopholes and delete the bad maneuvers.   Face it!  The F4B rules were written by a committee of foreign RCers.