2012 Championships

[Michael]

Having a great time at the Championships in Rosewood.  Two rounds flown today, but weather is somewhat iffy for tomorrow morning.  Attendance is a bit off with 27 entrants, and most of us are at a loss to explain why the event is not better supported by the qualified membership.

The hanger party is tonight, so this will necessarily be short.  Had a good Board of Directors meeting last night and hashed out a lot of thorny issues.  There was much concensus among the voting Board members on making changes for growth in the organization.  No round results available yet.

Mike

[paulsf86]

Mike:

Are you the only one there?  Virtually no information regarding what is happening.  This is amazing for a National Championship that there is so little coverage.  Probalbly one reason that more people are not participating in Scalemasters as a whole.

Paul

[paulsf86]

Last year there were daily pictures and results.  This year, nobody is even sure if the event is going on.  What is happening there?

Paul S

[rcphotog]

Michael,

 Thanks for the on-the-spot reporting from the Championships. Those of us on the west coast appreciate any and all updates.
It would be nice if someone ( inside the orginization ) would think enough about us fans to maybe "blog" a little bit each morning or evening about the acton ( or lack there of ) going on at the "once a year annual U.S. Scale Masters Championships"

In todays "tech-world" there's no excuse for keeping the fans in the dark as the event is happening. AND then waiting probably weeks for the official results to be posted. ( citing the previous spring-time annual BIG Scale Masters event in the Southwest were it took months for the results to be available )

There should be a "hot-link" to the site of the Championships on the home page. I should not have to "Google" ....the Ohio River View r/c club's website. A link to it should be BIG as day on the home page. I understand not having live-stream-video ( in this economy ) but SOMEONE should be posting SOME info each day.

Yes I'm frustraighted !!!
Ken Young.

[Mitchell Baker]

Sorry Ken and others..

I'm the one who normally puts on the web cam, posts the results on a daily bases etc... But this year, I'm registration and scoring....

As you can see it's almost midnight and I'm finally finished getting the scores "formatted" for printing to post in the morning for the pilots...  It's has nothing to do with economics.. the web came I do, and it's at no cost to USSMA.. all my dime for the broadband...  it's just a matter of not enough free time to set it up and monitor...  Plan and simple. And since I'm doing the score processing... I can't take any pics... 

That's it..

See-ya
Mitch

[rcphotog]

Mitch,
Thank you for all your hard work. AND getting some results posted tonight.
I know it's hard getting help....but....at the Championships, there should be ample support arranged months in advance. If people can't make it at the last minute...understandable...but then that's why we need to have volunteers standing by to fill-in.
( A topic for another time )

All we ask for is a little info each day..if no pics, then a brief discription of would sufice.

It sounds like you are overwhelmed by the lack of support. Do your best, we do appreciate it.
Ken.
ps; I didn't know that a person can enter in both Advanced and Expert , referring to Scott Harris.

[Mitchell Baker]

Mitch,
Thank you for all your hard work. AND getting some results posted tonight.
I know it's hard getting help....but....at the Championships, there should be ample support arranged months in advance. If people can't make it at the last minute...understandable...but then that's why we need to have volunteers standing by to fill-in.
( A topic for another time )

All we ask for is a little info each day..if no pics, then a brief discription of would sufice.

It sounds like you are overwhelmed by the lack of support. Do your best, we do appreciate it.
Ken.
ps; I didn't know that a person can enter in both Advanced and Expert , referring to Scott Harris.

That was approved by the National Chair.....

See-ya
Mitch

[wrench4alivin]

Mitch notice scoring posted is like FAI -  No qualifiers this year in the northeast to attend so is that the new scoring arrangement?

Jim

[Skymaster]

Jim,

Yes, the scoring did change. During the board meeting that was held, it was descided to normalize the scores for 2013. Normalization is used in many other flying competions, ie FAI, pattern and IMAC.

On Saturday Mitch was able to post the scores, both raw and normalized for the pilots to compare scores. It was then put to a vote to use it for the contest, since it doesn't really go into affect till the start of the next season. The result of the vote was to go through with the normalization of scores. And as I saw it, normalization was voted in by a wide margin.

Props to Mitch since it placed a hell of a lot more work on him. Thanks Mitch for the job you did.

John

[Steve_O]

Just to echo what some of the others have already said. A big thank you to Mitch and the entire crew that put on a great contest this year!

[wrench4alivin]

Thanks John!    Do understand as it was used as I can remember in Precision Scale back in the 80`s mid 90`s in the AMA class - thought worked out well back then to equal out scores.

Jim

[bwboland]

Hello all,

The 2012 USSMA Championship event is now history. I like to start by thanking the host club and all the event staff that made the event as smooth as it was. Special thanks to Earl Dever, Michael Hunt and CD Michael Caldwell. We had a lower than desired turn out but the flying sight was world class. Bill Beach owner of the property is a great host; this man never stopped working the entire time.

To the event!

I got there on Wednesday the 5th and the field was already busy as can be. The local news channel was out filming the planes getting video for the local news during the contest days. Michael Caldwell had just about everything ready to rock and roll. Weather stirred up a bit on Wednesday evening with winds close to 60MPH and hard rain but the field looked like nothing had happened in the AM the next morning other than the few puddles.

Mitch showed up in the afternoon on Wednesday for registration but we elected to move it to the host hotel due to weather. The hotel registration was busy and stayed open until like 9:00 PM.

Thursday started the static judging. All the judges were well prepped and ready to go so they started first thing in the AM. All the static judging was done by 4:00 PM I believe. Mitch was busy loading all of the registered pilots into the new normalized software getting ready for round one in the AM on Friday. Just about all of the pilots and crews head to the host hotel for the ZAP Tap room excitement for the evening. Thank s to Herschel we all had a few cold pops and a great time. At 8:00 PM the Board of Directors and Area director headed off to a different room for our BOD meeting. Lots of fun here at the BOD meeting but this will be covered on a different post.

Friday weather was great we started on time after the pilot meeting. No problem with any of the contestant planes during flight and round one went as planned. The noon time demos started as planned while the judges got lunch. Once the judges had lunch and had been rotated we moved on to round 2. We had a bit of a wind stir up in the afternoon but easily dealt with by the pilots. Again a great round and no problems! Again the pilots and crews like cattle headed to the host hotel for the Hanger party sponsored by Barbee Concrete. The party ran until better than 10:00 PM. Great food and cold soda pop for all, Thanks Mike Barbee!

Saturday morning during the pilots meeting I brought up the topic of score normalization and how the BOD had voted that it would start at the Champs in 2012. I asked all of the pilots to look at the scores on round 1 and 2 come back down to registration for a vote on using normalized or the old way.  We voted and all but one pilot want to use normalized scoring. I see this as a huge step for the Scale community to adopt new scoring with this acceptance levels.

Off we went into round 3. Weather was great, cool and clear. Flying scores seemed to improving each round as the pilots settled in. Once again the noon time demos hit the air with excitement. The war bird groups seem to be the big hit with the spectators. Once the judges were ready to go we moved on to round 4. Winds came up a bit but all in all the flying was great. After round 4 completed the pilots and crew headed off to get ready for the banquet.

The best of awards "none flying" were handed out along with the Harris Lee award. It seems I have made a huge mistake and select this year's recipient Mike Peck. I say mistake only as it seems Mike has received this award already. I have to follow this with Mike has done an over the top job helping Scale Masters stay alive and improve day by day. I can tell you from my chair, Mike is a world class model of what we need more have to grow and be successful in the future. I personally apologies to all of our members seeing this as a second Harris Lee award for Mike. In 2005 Earl Aune presented Mike Peck with a onetime award. Earl called this "The Harris Lee Life Time Achievement Award). This is different in my eyes from the standard Harris Lee Award. I have to point out that Mike is outstanding in the support of Scale Masters and to receive the Harris Lee award now is fitting. After the awards we auctioned up a Great Planes Giant Scale Corsair provided by Hobbico one of our many great sponsors.

Sunday's weather was outstanding, cool in the AM with light winds. We had one casualty while flying with the balance of the flights being uneventful. Round one was completed and off to the awards.

With this being the first time score normalization being used we have posted both raw (not normalized) and normalized standings. The normalized standings were used for the final standings. Please note we elected to normalize a 100 point score to 1000 for both flight and static in Advance, Team and Expert. The Open class static score was normalized to 300 points. This mean the person with the highest score in static will receive a 1000 point score for Advance, Team and advance and a 300 point score for Open. All flight scores also were normalized to a 1000 point score. The person with the highest score on each set of judges received a 1000 point score. I plan to publish a document on normalization in the next few weeks in our forum.

All in all, the entire event was a huge success. Thanks go out to all of our sponsors and helpers. Huge thanks goes out to Mitch Baker who never left his scoring chair.

Cheers,

Bernie Boland
USSMA National Chairman