PatV

An observation I would like to mention that I recently experienced. I attended the IPMS Metro OKC SoonerCon 2020 show this weekend. For this regional area, it was the first show held since all the shelter in place orders were set in motion back in March. While traveling from Dallas to OKC that morning I wondered what it would be like. Would people show? Will there be models? Are there going to be vendors? To my surprise lots of people arrived. Some made hotel reservations since their drive was from far distances (Houston, 8 hrs plus!). There were many models on the

If I recall correctly, the "Gear Up" category premiered during the 2013 Loveland, CO Nats. It was created to "level the playing field" when comparing planes with gear up (GU) versus gear down (GD). This worked in two ways from a judging perspective. The GU planes had fewer details to judge when compared to a fully plumbed GD build. However, the GD planes were more susceptible to alignment problems that the GU planes did not encounter. So, by splitting them creates a better “apples-to-apples” comparison. This category has been very popular since inception. HTH – PatV.