This weekend, June 8-10, 2017, the IAC will be hosting a full scale contest here at the Rome GA.

A group of Scale Aerobatics enthusiasts will be meeting up there on Saturday to see and may even be involved in scribing for the Judges at the event.

We will endeavor to take some "up close & personal" photos of the competitors and their "steeds" and post the info here.

Our group at this time will include: Dan Baker, Curtis Cozier, John Snider, Alan Anderson, Joe Ryan, Tony Jacobs & Wayne Matthews. Others have been invited, but these are confirmed.

Looking forward to being up there in GA & reporting to F/Giants of the outcome.
Wayne

Sounds like you guys are going to have a blast!

Enjoy your time there and be sure to post a lot of pictures as I have never attended a IAC event and would be very interested to see how they are.

Enjoy wayne and everyone.

Tony

Our good friend, Joe Ryan, who is a Captain for SW went up there today and he was pretty excited.

He mentioned that he did some scribing for the Unlimited class and the sequence happened very quickly. The judges rattled off score with why deductions were given and the scribe had to write the info down onto the score sheet.

Joe also mentioned that some of the competitors did not know Aresti as well as we would have predicted. Similar to what is experienced in the lower IMAC classes.

Here are a few photos to "whet" your appetite! We will be putting up more info as it is gathered.

Looking forward to it and certainly bringing my camera!

Wayne
in photo 4 that extra is the one that Patty flys in the airshows... is she competing or is someone else flying it? i know she doesn't actually own that airplane.

Originally Posted by Carruthers43

Wayne
in photo 4 that extra is the one that Patty flys in the airshows... is she competing or is someone else flying it? i know she doesn't actually own that airplane.

Im not sure who is actually flying that aircraft. When we get up there tomorrow, I'll definitely find out & post the answer.

It looks like a nice contest with 22 pilots participating..... 10 more than last week at an IMAC contest that I had attended.
Wayne

Patty was not there flying. I don't know who was flying the plane though. Robert Armstrong was there. He is a former Unlimited Champion I believe. He was not competing . He did go up and do what they call "showing the low lines". They fly the lower limits of the aerobatic box for each class so that the judges can get a good reference for that. I would assume it's a zero or a big deduction if they fly lower. Anyways Robert Armstrong flew these lines for one class and did a small routine while he was up there. Amazing how precise he was.

That Extra is being flown by Shaun. Beautician of North Georgia. They are flying Unknowns right now and we have seen a few zeroes and out of box calls. This is very interesting. They do have line ( box) judges to call out of box who are out in the boonies all by themselves.
Wayne

Looks like a great time!

Originally Posted by wmat7039

.......... They do have line ( box) judges to call out of box who are out in the boonies all by themselves.
Wayne

You mean this person?

Here are some pics I took today

I'll bet it's hot sitting there on the tarmac with a sunshade or popup type cover!!

What is the K factor for the sound score?? LOL

THANKS for uploading those photos, Curtis.

The event was held at a regional Airport, hence, the air space was not closed and there were several arrivals and departures during our time there. After a "scenic" drive....provided by Dan Baker & his GPS we arrived at the airport and did a walk-through of the participating aircraft. I was a bit surprised that security allowed us to walk around as freely as we did, without any checks whatsoever.

After oohing & ahhing at the parked "steeds' we spoke with several participating pilots, noticing their "competition placing stickers" on the vertical stabs, before venturing up to the Judging area. I must say that everyone was quite friendly and accommodating. We felt at home...just like an IMAC contest and many of the folks there knew about our Scale Aerobatics club and particularly referenced our "power to weight" advantage as compared to theirs.

Each class had its own "Chief Judge" and they had all the score sheets marked with pilot info, aircraft, class etc. There were 5 sets of judges, complete with an "Assist" (Caller), and a "Recorder" (Scribe). The entry fee ranged from $140.00 - $180.00 (depending on the class flown) and they competed with their multi-thousand $$ airplanes for wooden trophies, just like us.

As Joe Ryan had already mentioned, prior to each class competing, a pilot would fly a "low line limit" and the entire box parameters so the judges could see these. The Chief Judge would call the judges attention, then each competitor would enter..."wag" the wings to indicate starting of his sequence & then start from a horizontal line.

There were several box infringement calls by the line judges which came in by radio and also several "breaks" by pilots who had to re-enter after making mistakes. The difference with our criteria, is that they do not have to re-fly the previous maneuver before moving on. There was one particular Advanced pilot (who flew a pretty yellow Extra) that had the smallest footprint and closest to the judges that I observed.

I had the opportunity to "Record" (scribe) for him with the Sportsman class and also was given the opportunity to "Assist" (Caller) for the Unlimited sequence (2 pilots). During the break between the classes I had complimented him on his small airspace and asked what was the problem on the last 2 maneuvers in his Unknown. Both John Snider and myself had noticed that on the 2nd to last Hammerhead, he missed a Half Negative Snaproll on the downline and ended up going in the wrong direction on the X axis. As a result, he zeroed both maneuvers.

He told me that he was really concentrating on the sequence and on the Hammer...he was saying to himself..."I got this" and was over confident ....missing (completely forgetting) the Half Snap and giving away the Unknown when it was in his hands. We all know how that feels...Don't we??

One last observation.... Unlike IMAC...the pilot does not decide which direction to fly the sequence. The WIND designates which way to go. I forgot to ask what happens if there is a direct crosswind...but I would suppose that the Chief Judge would make that decision in that case...BUT I am not sure about that.

There was one comment by one of the Chief Judges regarding a contact with IMAC that he made from Pensacola to invite IMAC to participate at the Oshkosh event...and he was a bit disappointed at the reply.

Anyway....we were burnt out by the sun and after the first set of Unknowns were completed, we decided to call it a day and return home, after thoroughly enjoying ourselves at the IAC event.

We did not take Dan's "scenic" route back home!!
Wayne