Many good fields located in the Southwest, I would think. Ours would work!
> One other thing that wasn't mentioned is that the Scale Masters provides a
>bias towards WWII and Jets by holding their events on paved strips (I flew my
>Bristol F2B in 91 at Vegas and only got one really nice landing in).
This is certainly true! At the '91 Scale Masters Tom Polapink had a heck of
a time on the tarmac strip they were flying on! It is certainly part of the
bias business.
> Of course while we were at it, it would be nice to find a central location so
>that travel time for everyone would not be excessive. (This is whinning by a
>poor Northern boy from Edmonton, Alberta) There are at least two other WWI
>flyers up north here with me.
How about the great and wonderous AMA National Flying Site? I believe they
have the proper facilities! But I think the last sentence is the real story.
I was surprised by the number of WWI entries into this years Scale Masters.
Generally WWI subjects are few and far between. In general most modelers do
not model the WWI/Golden Age era of aviation. I hear it all this time. Too
many wires, too hard to fly, can't fly in wind, can't fly in a cross wind
etc. etc. etc! Our club (150 members) has 2 WWI/Golden Age flyers. Until our
numbers go up and we get into a position where we can be a part of the
planning process for these kinds of events we will lose out to the "heavy
metal" flyers.
To this end more coverage of events like Rhinebeck can help. I think that a
lot of why many of the flyers (not necessarily modelers) go with the Jets
and heavy metal has to do with the amount of press they get in the major
modeling mags. When you read the articles about the big events most of them
are slanted towards these kinds of models. Modelers on the other hand may be
a bit more likely to model their favorite era of avaition. And I believe the
number of modelers in the hobby today is a small minority compared with the
flyers.
> How serious is the discussion about this resurgence? I know Dick, and he has
>talked about this concern for quite awhile but nothing has come of it yet.
How much can he do? When you make kits that are way out of the range of the
average guy it is hard to get your voice heard. Flair makes very nice sport
scale models but do not have enough "press" here to be heard. There is a new
company on the market that I just heard about who may help in this area.
Doug
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'I am a traveler of | Douglas R. Jones
both Time and Space' | IEX Corporation
Led Zeppelin | (214)301-1307
| djones@iex.com
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