2002 Scale Masters

This year’s Scale Masters
Championships, held October 9-
13, moved from the Northwest to
the southwestern region of the
country. Sunny southern Arizona
is a beautiful place to hold a
modeling event in October, with
sunny skies and low humidity.
The Superstition Air Park in
Mesa is the site for some of the
best aeromodeling in the
country. The Arizona Model
Aviators served as the host club,
and they have a paved runway and covered
pit area that helps make any visit to this site
enjoyable.

RADIO CONTROL SCALE - 2003/01

in 2003 The first indoor Radio Control
(RC) Scale National Championships will take
place using AMA Sport Scale rules including
documentation and flight requirements. To be
held at the Neville Island Sports Center golf
dome, the primary difference between
outdoor RC and this event is a weight limit of
20 ounces and a wing-loading limit of 2.5
ounces per square foot of wing area.
Hosted by the Greater Pittsburgh Aero
Radio Control Society, the event will take
place August 15-17. Static judging will take
place the first evening, and flying will be
during the following two days.
This is a new event for an exploding
segment of our hobby. Indoor events have
been taking off across the country in the past
two years. Scale modelers have seen a large
increase in this activity. Many of the smaller,
older plans sets for Free Flight (FF) or
Control Line (CL) Scale with spans of 50
inches or less are prime candidates for this
activity.

RADIO CONTROL SCALE - 2001/05

some inspiRaTion for this column
came from the last trip to the local grocery
store. My wife said we were going for a
gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. You figure
we’ll spend five bucks at the most, right?
After going through the checkout and
having the piecrusts crushed, we spent a
total of $61.93.
I think some of us are that way when we
go to the hobby shop for that spare propeller
or gallon of fuel; we spend more than we
had planned. The hobby manufacturers
know that flashy box covers and shiny
photos of the finished models sell kits and
Almost Ready to Flys (ARFs).
My job is in the retail grocery business.
We know those candy bars are at the
checkout counter for a reason. At roughly
three feet off the floor, they are in reach of
most kids; if the kids pick the candy up,
mom will buy it.
The same logic holds true for us
modelers. If the hobby shop has shiny new
engines (on sale, of course), glue, and
magazines out at the checkout counter,
chances are we’ll buy them.
Many modelers are what our wives or
husbands commonly call “pack rats”—I’m one.
This point was brought home last weekend
during a conversation with Jim Rediske.

Letters to the Editor - 2003/01

The staff of Model Aviation apologizes for
the error in the advertisement on page 59 of
the December issue. We regret any
inconvenience this may have caused readers
or Machine Works Northwest.
Top Gun/Sun-’n-Fun
Due to prior commitments, I am just now
trying to catch up on a huge backlog of
reading. I call your attention to an error which
has slipped through and I would hope that you
would appreciate it being pointed out to you.
In the September 2002 issue of Model
Aviation, on page 19, the first page of the Top
Gun report by Mr. Stan Alexander, in the first
sentence of the second paragraph (which is
quoted below), an error has been stated. “This
is the same airport at which the Experimental
Aircraft Association (EAA) holds Sun ’n Fun:
its annual southern version of the Oshkosh,
Wisconsin gathering.”

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