BOM vs The Real Problem

[RRyan]

Copied from my post on the NFFS site for your consideration:

I've stayed away from entering this thread for a long time. But now I just want to put forward my nutshelled feelings on the matter. Many that know me know my stance but I thought I'd make it heard here.

I am still in favor of a strong BOM, but one that is well defined. My involvement in the NFFS BOM committee has given me exposure to a number of positions pro and con. I have conceeded that a change is coming and wanted input as to its content.

For many years I have enjoyed this hobby, not just Free Flight but all 3 disciplines, though FF is my first love. I tried feverishly to try to make the others understand the basis for the strong feelings of support for the BOM and how the opposition seems to gloss over that while regarding Free Flight as merely a flying event. I think I may have finally become able to explain the difference between the opponents in this issue.

For the BOM detracters the issue has several facets that on the surface seem to have merit and indeed more then seemingly though not really defensible to a BOM supporter. Supporters, am I right or wrong?

First, BOM is unenforceable, well, since when is that news? Speed limits are also unenforceable most of the time, the dependance on personal integrity was and is still the main enforcer.

Second, Free Flight is about flying, wrong, it is NOT (all) about flying, I will elaborate in the next section.

Third, elimination of the BOM will "SAVE" Free Flight from its sure death, but death is certain if we hang on to antiquated rules.


For the BOM supporters I have a couple rather simple remarks that I think may ring true in their ears after I make them. Detracters please take note.

First, we simply place a high value on personal integrity and take is very personally when someone suggests that we should compromise it for the sake of legitimizing cheaters. Cheaters know who they are and if they've won tropies cheating they really know they just stole them.

Second and probably the single most unexpressed, misunderstood or mis-stated issue is that Free FLight is about flying. Certainly that's part of it, but here is the crux of the issue and I think that every single BOM supporter will agree; For us, the contest is not on the date published on the flyer, the "contest" begins at the drawing or building board. I am competing as I draw the lines for the next design of scale it up from the magazine article, I am competing as I glue the ribs into a wing, or as I shape the leading edge. I am competing while I spread the dope over the tissue, I am competing as I calculate the weights for the components. And I am competing when I finally go out to trim the model to bring out its full performance potential. These are the things that many have tried to express but have been left short of the words to express it. I may not have expressed it elequently, but I'm sure the essence is there. This is what is felt but unexpressed when someone says that baseball players don't make their own bats and mits, football players don't etc., etc.,. Frankly we don't care, we have competed on a much more intellectual level for a long time and see it as a personal afront to have it discounted as worthless. Time was never the issue, if the most you can do is glue in one rib a night eventually you will have a completed model, I know that's what I've had to do in the busiest times of my life. But because of the underlying competitive drive to participate in the event at its fullest (and required) level, I got through it, and so did many others.

Third, elimination will NOT save Free Flight as so many blindly seem to think. If a kid had a truckload of free flights to fly, he'd still have to have a field to fly them in. That is the issue we've broached countless times over the years but have never looked at with any sincerity because it seems (and may be) insurmountable. The fact remains that having a place to fly without having to wait for the next trip to Muncie is the only thing that will "save" Free Flight in the majority of cases. Without it, you can change or make all the rules you want, Free Flight is on its deathbed without the right medicine.


_________________
Randy Ryan
AMA 8500
SAM 36
BO all my own M's

[ctdahle]

Randy,

I hadn't really been paying attention to the status of the BOM rule. I had been under the assumption that it was alive and well. Indeed I have always thought that the true appeal of FreeFlight was to design and construct a competitive model and that freeflight competition was more about the design and craftsmanship then the skills of launching. Though obviously there is a skill set in sniffing out lift, using a proper launch technique, and the never ending task of trimming.

It seems to me though that a freeflight competiton where the competitors all flew identical models from the same manufacturer wouldn't mean much. Certainly there would be some variation based on trimming, sniffing out lift and good launch technique, but it would not indicate relative mastery of an overall set of skills.

Of course I am in that category of modelers that doesn't really have a good place to fly freeflight. I fly them once or twice just to prove that they do fly, and then I hang them from the ceiling. For me construction of a freeflight model is almost the whole thing, producing an original artform.

And they are artforms. A well constructed and nicely finished Phoenix, Geef, or Sattellite is a thing of beauty, and nearly as beautiful in the gallery space of my high ceilinged office as against the sun and blue sky. And that is what sets off the sport of freeflight from golf, tennis, baseball or other sports. The tools are kenetic art forms in a way that bats, tennis racquets, golfclubs, spiked shoes, shuttlecocks, clay pigeons, wickets, goal nets, soccer balls...are not.

[RRyan]

Hi Chris,

Been a long time, way back in the RC Online days if I remember correctly.

Yes, I'm afraid that Free Flight in it's beautiful artistic and valueable way is about to come to an end. No longer an artisan's or intellectual's hobby, but one just like all the other games people "dabble" in. Its a shame really, the value has been overlooked for the simple "fun" part that seems to be the only reason anybody wants to do anything. Not that Free Flight isn't fun, but to participate purely for the fun is missing the whole point.

Thanks,

Randy

[ctdahle]

I think there is hope Randy, but maybe that's because I read Flying Models. Seems to me that there are lots of pockets of interest: in indoor, in the science olympiad events, ff scale, Bostonians.

Where it appears things are declining are in the large gassies. My impression is that you need wide open spaces to fly D, C, B, or even A gas. --Wide open spaces where you can chase your model on a dirt bike without hitting a fenceline every 220 yards. There are few areas of the country with that kind of open space anymore.

I've flown 1/2A gas in the park where I fly electric R/C, but it was marginal, and not a lot of fun alone. I can fly a pennyplane in the school gym, or peanut scale in my front yard, but again, it's not so much fun by myself. I like to watch other people fly too.

I don't want to minimize the challenge of flying a ff model well, but it is an intellectual challenge, and one met as much on the building board as the flying field. Trimming and launching an ARF doesn't present the physical challenge of other sports where you buy the tools and devote endless energy to improving your swing or perfecting your backhand.

So eliminating the BOM rule is not going to save freeflight, because free flight is fundamentally about building AND flying. Flying well is the reward for building well, and a good flight is an incentive to build even better next time.

Eliminate BOM and the goal is no longer to build well, but to buy well, and while this will financially reward a few resourceful modelers who quest to produce the finest manufactured product, it marginalizes the craftsman who strives to reach his personal best in the shop and on the field.

[50PLUSAIRYEARS]

If there are enough people out there competing, how about a separate point system for builders/non-builders?

We are running out of room for any large FF models. There is a bit of room for Flying Aces events where I live, but even where the CFFS holds their monthly meets at a local community college, development is taking space away. It is becoming hard to find room for R/C flying, and even the park flyers are sometimes having problems sharing room with other park users.

Someday, even the Western states which still have open room are going to have this problem.

[ctdahle]

Another thought is go ahead and eliminate the BOM rule, but classify any flight by a non builder as a proxy flight for the builder and give him the trophy. Seems like there are a few years where the Moffet and Wakefield trophies were awarded for proxy flights.

[jet]

I have Flying Aces magazines from the late 30's which have ads for ready to fly competition freeflight models.

Jim

[50PLUSAIRYEARS]

As the song says, "Everything Old is New Again!".