Exposed screws are a detractor? They describe a method to install gears with hidden screws? I do not even know how that would be done.
Exposed pipes are bad? What about the engine being exposed? Is that a deduction also?
Canopies are a bonus now? Is this scale? I thought this was stunt. I have issues of Nats winning planes going back twenty years. Here are a few. Genesis (Nats and World Champ), Spectrum (Worlds team and Nats), Columbia (worlds team and Nats), Avanti (never won), Epic (Concourse), Cardinal (20 pointer-Concourse), none of which have a canopy. These are just off the top of my head.
Wheel pants should be filleted to the gear? Well, this shoots down all the guys will dural gear.
When did the bottom of the airplane become a part of the judging? When I was there in 1996, the judges did not even pick up the airplanes for judging. None of the bottoms were judged.
It really does appear to me the rules are re-written every so often to appeal to a certain crowd. I made a joke to guys last night that my new plane had better have some checkerboard on it somewhere to qualify as a real stunt plane.
I also have serious thought about going back to white, it seems to be the universally accepted color.
This is sign of our times, everything is taken to its ridiculous extreme.
Now Dan, that’s a rant.