If you get a chance to read over the mag article on Bob B's HumBug, you'll find a lot worth thinking about.
The minimal approach, ASIR, was part of the mix. Bob and Wild Bill Netzeband coordinated on developing the model for the express purpose of developing a model that would most likely come closer to the rulebook requirements for the maneuvers than anything else.
I'll have to dig it out and read it again, now... I recall one thing specifically - I think Bob Baron mentioned that the model was trimmed so sensitively that he could see his pulse reflected in the flight path! Of course, he was an exceptional flier, and could handle the model trimmed so 'quick.' Plus, from the handle, he could see things that the rest of us could not...
Aside from the radically different overall look of the 'Bug, from all angles, there was that howling VECO .19 out front. Didn't sound like a Fox 35, OS 35S, or ST46, at all. Distracting? Perhaps... And our judges have improved nicely since that time - less influenced by actually irrelevant factors, despite a deeper awareness of "mainstream" practices, appearance and model shapes. The poor swabbies, hurriedly trained to judge something unfamiliar, could only go by how they WERE trained. A loud, screaming model that looked drastically different from the ones they were trained on, flew faster, and didn't fly the corners and rounds the same way? They couldn't know if the oddball was better or worse, only that it was NOT what they were trained to judge.
The legendary NAVY Nats were somethig special, in many ways. There were several model construction articles that ranted on about how to "psyche" the (junior enlisted) Navy judges. One is quite amusing - the designer (name will float up to the window in my OLD Magic Eightball, shortly, I expect) designed his model to somewhat resemble a USN jet fighter, and decorated it with panel lines, maintenance legends and national insignia to make the impression deeper. Many of the models were 'presented' on the same theory.
(AHA! Magic Eightball window says: designer - Jim Kostecky, model -Talon, a Flying Models featured article.)
When the "better" fliers got to the Nats, they found a bunch of not-particularly-charmed junior USN 'ratings' with the clipboards. Guys who thought volunteering to judge a toy airplane contest would be a rest from the junior sailor's usual ration of BS and Chicken-excretion, but found it meant standing out in the hot sun on a paved runway all day, for several days. Not the most motivated group you might wish for, but they did very well, regardless.
Jim K mentioned that these judges were tired of smart-a** junior Officers, who climbed into the Navy jets it took muchos hours of junior enlisted sweat to get ready for them to take up and butcher... ...And all these toy airplane guys were dressed in whites, just like aforesaid Officers, and were flying model airplanes that looked like those hated jets the (Army term is "grunts") 'teams' prepped and repaired for those snot-nose aforesaid junior Officers...
Another negative? Sure, but the US Navy has a tradition of meeting and surviving such, right Ty? Jim K thought he might do better if he went out there in "earth shoes, cut-off blue jeans, some sort of political comment Tee-shirt, and granny glasses," which would resonate with the (oh no! not disaffected!) (less than happy?) judges. Jim flew well, anyhow. The model has a definite life in the Classic category.
When we started to enlist (oops! sounds like dodging the draft - which no longer exists - by the way. ...by joining up before they order you into uniform), knowledgeable judges from within the Stunt Community, also about timed with the end of Navy Nats, we got a steady improvement in quality, nationwide, and reduced regional differences in standards. However, in regard to models like the HumBug, there was a built-in expectation of how a model should look, should corner, should sound. Anything less was, at least, a distraction. It might raise a sense of bias-against...
Topic: Going Flapless (Read 2267 times)
