Scale Matters

Teams at the 2026 Scale World Championships, which included 114 pilots. British Model Flying Association photo.

World championships, flying

By Orin Humphries
October 2026

This experience was so unusually rich that this is going to take a while. So, settle in and maybe order a pizza. I was dependent upon my stellar teammates to usher me through this amazing saga, not just because I was a newbie to this level, but because I am going through a difficult time in my life. They were all great! Of course, we did have one weirdo who used to be a train-hopper. (That’s an insider-humor thing. Luv ya like a brother, JB.)

I first have to tie up a couple of loose ends from the first installment. I haven’t been in an airport terminal in 10 years. Everything is totally different, unfamiliar. Just signing in doesn’t resemble any previous experience. The signs directing passengers to the next stop are too far apart to be useful. I was a fish out of water and had to depend upon terminal staff to get me to the next points. My Team members also helped get me around.

I sent my claim for crate damage to FedEx Freight a month ago, and they have made no effort to contact me regarding its processing. Another Team member has had the same experience. Next time. I will suggest we at least look at DHL for our shipper.

Static

Entering the World Championships is not like anything seen in AMA contests. The paperwork occupied a record number of folders for me.

Paperwork for a World Championships entry. Orin Humphries photo.

 We had to follow checklists provided by our Team cadre.

The registration fee was $656, if memory serves, where the figure that I heard for the cost to the British Model Flyers Association for putting on the World Championships in Buckminster, UK, was $700K. Setting up and later tearing down the huge L-shaped hangar cost them around $70,000.

Scale Doc

The judging was done by panels of three judges, and each one wanted their own copy of your Scale documentation. The rulebook for F4B spells out the size and contents requirements. Mark you, what the book says they want is NOT negotiable! At the AMA Nationals, at the Northwest Regionals, those rules have a little slack, as practiced. But, at World, these judges are tasked with sorting out the very top modelers from around an entire planet. They have to be the world gold standard for “Strict.”

We are limited to five photographs, no more. This is because of the enormity of judging 114 or so pilots’ models before any one of the pilots has another birthday. The time allotted for each model’s static judging is 22 minutes. The “preferred” sizes of the pages are 11x17” max. You must make three copies of everything that you submit, one for each judge.

Gathering and sorting the contents to make three copies. Orin Humphries photo.

Let me do a flashback to the Nats and Team Trials that were held in Muncie, Ind., during July 2025. I had entered my Stearman, and for the Scale doc I turned in three copies of the notebooks. These were adapted from the AMA documentation for the previous Nats week. The head judge for F4B, World Scale, Alan Goff, kindly took me aside after the Static judging for F4B, and he coached me on what the World judges want to see for scale documentation and why. He said that they don’t like to have to thumb back and forth through three-ring notebooks. The World judges want the materials spread over large 11 x17 sheets for easier referencing.

Note very carefully: You must have credible paint chips in triplicate. Your photos have to be taken from the angles shown in your three-views, not quarter-angle shots.

However, one member of Team USA makes what for me are the most professionally crafted three-ring notebook sets that I have ever seen. He has so much experience in World Scale competitions that I had to do some very long thinking as to which form of Scale doc to use.
Through life, my old college's course, Psych 101, has served me almost without fail. Psych 101 instructs that if a judge says just how they want to see your presentation, you will score a little higher than if you made your materials some other way. Mark you that at World, scores turn on a half of a point in a possible couple of thousands for the whole contest.

Not following a coach after all of the time that he had put into trying to help me weighed upon me heavily. Finally, my decision was to go with Psych 101. As the rookie this cycle, I needed all the points I could get. My apologies to my coach.

The rulebook very positively states that if the entrant doesn’t present the Scale doc as stated in the book, points will come off. (!!!)

Waiting for the start

Originally the static judging was to be done first, before the flying portion of the contest. However, getting all of the judges from literally around the world, both for the static part and the flying part to come afterwards on the same page at the same consistency (as much as is humanly possible) took days instead of hours. While two days passed, pilots were using the time to put up practice flights.

Very unfortunately, we had arrived in Buckminster in the throes of a strong windstorm. The baseline wind was 12 mph with gusts to 18 or 19 mph. We control-liners were doubting that CL could even be held this year. It was also 91 degrees and quite humid. “London Fog”? My Great Aunt!

The first three of our RC pilots who put up practice flights with their giant biplanes crashed. Their landing gears were completely ripped off of their planes! One of the models had a prop that was held on by six bolts and the prop was broken.

My CL buddy, Mike McHenry, put up a flight during this time, but I was still sleep depped and sat that time out, saving my plane. I don’t remember if he had any damage to repair.

The Brotherhood Begins

I didn’t really grasp what was to unfold in this experience, yet. Pilots from other countries offered our RC pilots assistance in the form of tools, supplies, and ideas to fix the three crashed planes. I recognize in retrospect that this was going on all over the large hangar. It took one and a half to two days to get all three airplanes back into shape to continue the contest.

One of the axles on one of our three damaged planes, made of quarter-inch music wire, had a bend in the leg an inch above the axle. Now, how do you straighten a wire that heavy this far from home? Two foreign pilots came to our man and led him around the bend in the hangar. He returned a half-hour later with a straightened gear leg! And that was how it to be for all of this, throughout the entire experience. If anyone crashed, there was standing room only around the repair table, Pilots helping pilots, no nations not trying to help.

Static Judging

Pete Bauer assisting Orin with displaying it how the judges wanted to see the plane, matching one of the three-views. Kathy Bauer photo.

My Stinson SR-6 Reliant

My model was built from a J. Roberts kit, and there is a story behind my selecting it for this Championship.

Early in the 1970s at the Northwest Regionals in Eugene, Ore., I happened to meet Bob Smurthwaite while I was entered in the Navy Carrier event. Bob was the inventor/owner of J. Roberts Model Company. (His name was J. Robert Smurthwaite, hence, “J. Roberts”.) He had invented our famous three-line bellcrank system. Being both of us were technical people, we corresponded between contests, becoming fast friends for life.

Bob made kits for Navy Carrier, and then he branched into RC Scale kits. His were top notch. But “building" died by 1990 and Bob closed his factory. In September 1992, I wrote him and asked if it were possible for him to put together one of his RC Scale kits to remember him by. He went out into his closed factory and put together and put my Stinson SR-6 kit together with his own hands. He died two months later, in November1992.

Over the years, I had thought I would eventually offer this, the last-ever kit from J. Roberts Models, to the collector faction. But, no one of the collectors would ever know or care about my relationship with Bob, so I finally determined that I would build it and enter it into a very high-level contest for him. Now, for documentation…

Online, I found numerous SR-6s, but only one had photos showing the N-number. That airplane was for sale back east somewhere, and I emailed the owner. I asked for more photos and especially color chips. The owner did not respond. The photos were quarter shots, not direct front, side, and top photos. Oh, well, the rules said I would lose some point in Static, but I had a plan to make up for that. I wanted to build in two new maneuvers for CL Scale.

The lack of color chips, well, the rule book instructs the judges to make allowances for different lighting conditions in the photos. My presentation stated that I had sent my photos to Klass-Kote who ran them through their spectral analyzers. Klass-Kote stated that their best estimate was that these are Light Red and FS 15095 blue. No joy. This wasn’t “paint chips.”

My three-view was stamped “National Air and Space Museum." My presentation stated that the kit was made directly from factory drawings and with consultation from two men who were restoring their full-size SR-6s. No joy. I did not have photos matching the view angles shown in the drawings. Can those judges not look at my three-views and the model, which was presented to them exactly matching the angles in the drawings per their instructions and tell there is museum-level precision in shapes and proportions? (Rhetorical question, that.)

Now, we get to recall the rulebook which said, “… points will be deducted.” Well, you know, there are semantic differences between cultures and languages. For instance, when the English say, “biscuits,” they mean, “cookies.” When the F4B rules say, “deducted,” they mean “Custer’s Last Stand.” I got 356 points out of 500 in Static. This, in a contest that turns on a half -point.

That’s my personal opinion of this. However, I must recall an adage: “Their yard, their marbles, their rules.” Sigh.

Again, to separate pilots of this level, things have to be IRON tight.

On a very positive note, our RC pilot, Ben Andrus, with his red Fairchild 24, scored No. 2 in the static judging out of 114 models. His micro detailing was truly amazing.

It doesn't get better than Ben Andrus' work. Team photo.

Here We Go

The U.S. CL Scale team, from left: Orin Humphries, SR-6; Mike McHenry, L-4; Jeremy Arvin, F4B Team Manager; Pete Bauer, Islander; Kathy Bauer, Twin Otter. Team photo.

Orin Humphries and the SR-6. This airplane came in at 8.9 lbs., but with a huge wing area to support it. Jeremy Arvin photo.

Team leader Pete Bauer's Islander. Orin Humphries photo.

(Kathy Bauer was America’s entry into F4B Woman Pilot, the first-ever contest with this category. She was interviewed by the media. There was a German woman pilot entered, as well. Orin Humphries photo.

The Storm

This is part of the baby jungle that scrambled the wind. Orin Humphries photo.

Make a note that 20 pilots showed up for the first day of flying.

The wind was coming downhill toward our circle, which was set level into a gentle slope, there was a four-foot rise to grade on the upwind side, and beyond the fence there was foliage 12 feet high for the wind to tumble over, down onto us. Before the wind even got to the baby jungle out there, it first had to jump over a 20-foot-tall hedge! Mike and I didn’t talk openly about it, but we each harbored the belief that safe CL was not possible. Bad things were going to happen. I said to our Team leader, Pete, “I will not fly my whole pattern. I will land immediately after the required five level laps and have an airplane to bring home.” Pete silently mulled over the impact on the Team’s chance, then.

The first one of us to be called up was Pete with his Islander. Pete was the reigning World Champion Control Line Scale pilot from the 2024 Championships. The wind was high and rowdy beyond belief. It tumbled over the jungle and slammed down onto our circle. Pete was maybe two-thirds of the way through his routine and transitioning through eight feet when the turbulence swatted him out of the air! The wing broke loose and it was a hard crash to watch. It was just in a heap. Mike got in a flight without significant damage. Kathy’s Otter was likewise swatted out of the air from a lower altitude and suffered moderate damage.

Mike McHenry’s Piper, looking great! Orin Humphries photo.

I was not over-confident after receiving my competitor jersey! Orin Humphries photo.

When I was called up, I informed the judges of my two new maneuvers, S-Taxi and Wing-Wag. No control-liner has ever done these to my knowledge in the history of CL since its invention by Oba St. Clair in 1936.

Mike pitted for me and Kathy set up my handle in the center, turning on my radio for me. I got a great start-up and waved the plane off. Horrors! The bird immediately turned in on me in a very tight circle. I hit the kill switch and jogged to see what had happened. The forklift drivers who handled our crates are notorious for damaging our shipping crates, and I had failed to detect any shipping damage to my crate or plane. However, it turned out that my tailwheel mount had been broken in transit. My tailwheel was loose, causing the loss of control. The inspector-designate saw that the damage was something beyond my control, and so he awarded me a re-fly for after the rotation was finished.

Here’s another great CL Scale model in the contest, a Fokker D-VIII. The heat had so big an impact on me that I was unable to hang at the circle and get decent coverage of the other models. Orin Humphries photo.

Turbulence smacked the twin-engined model from Team Ukraine onto the ground from a couple of feet up on approach, and its twin tail broke off. This was so typical of the day.

Pete’s Islander was spared fatal damage by our big birds’ needing their wings to be separable a la RC craft for shipment. While he was surveying his way forward, Jack Buckley and Ben Andrus, a pair of our RC pilots, checked in with me. Jack brought some epoxy for the repair of the tailwheel mount. I held the parts in position while Ben applied the epoxy. At the end of the relay, Jeremy, was it? He came and asked me if I could make it to the re-fly. I replied that the epoxy would have to harden overnight so that I had to scratch the first round.

A reflection

Let me pause for a moment and tell you of something I did not expect to experience, here. In the Parade of Nations, we were separated according to country. However, the moment that the first model became airborne on Day One, this whole little world changed. Every pilot there cheered for every other pilot’s successful flight. Every pilot winced when any one crashed. And there were lots of those. We were a Brotherhood of Pilots from all over the globe gathering to fly together for a couple of weeks. We were there to have fun, fellowship, renew old friendships and to make new ones. And fly the heck out of our planes! Meanwhile, somewhere, the hosts were running the numbers stuff. That was their thing.

I will jump ahead several days, now, to relate a couple of examples. One afternoon, our Ben Andrus was called up to fly his RC Fairchild 24, mentioned before. Of course, anyone on Team USA, CL or RC, stood ready to help anyone else. You expect that, right? Well…

CL flier Mike McHenry running after an electric starter for RC pilot Ben. Orin Humphries photo.

Ben couldn’t prop his engine to get it started per his usual routine. Our Mike shagged it across the campus to get an electric starter out of the kit. With that assist, Ben got up before the clock ran out.

Now note this: Two days later, CL was in a stand-down due to increased winds. I wandered over to the RC flying site to watch. A man from Team Finland was starting his model. I glanced toward the judging spot and saw that the pilot’s caller was standing ready for him. The engine started and the pilot jogged toward the flying spot and his caller. Wait, though; his caller looked familiar. I looked again, and the caller was our RC pilot Ben Andrus, acting as caller for a pilot from Team Finland.

This was The Brotherhood in full bloom. This was how this, this supposed-to-be-contest, was. Wall to wall. We were all for one and one for all. Months later, I still need a moment recalling this now.

Back onto the running timeline.

Day Two

Cowabunga!

How many planes showed up for Day One? Remember? Twenty. Today 11 showed up. And two of those were repairs from Day One. The wind and heat continued unabated. Pete got his Islander repaired to a flyable condition, as did Kathy. The wind beat everybody up, and it was to scatter us wildly across the standings in the end. I got my first flight in for Relay Two.

The wind was still based on 12 mph with gusts to 18.

Upon release, I executed my S-Taxi routine for the quarter circle up to the judging station. This maneuver being a in very early stage of development, my side-to-side travel was too wide for best scale realism. But I did it.

My Stinson got off, and to keep it out there on the upwind side of the circle I had to fly this baby whale at full throttle. This is what Mike and the others were doing. On the upwind side of the circle the pull in my lines was more than 40 pounds! On the downwind side it felt it was in the neighborhood of 60 pounds. The center of the circle was a blacktop dot with good traction available. But in order to resist that pull, I had to crouch my left leg as much as I could and extend my right leg out straight toward the plane. It is my manner to never pick up my left foot and have my right foot walk around that spot. This is so I don’t wander. It struck me that this pull was about twice what the regulation pull test was!

The pull was so great that I was being dragged two feet downwind each time around. On the upwind side I tried to regain the center with my left foot, only to repeat this for every lap. I was somehow surviving the flight, so I bagged my intention to land soon and I finished the routine. Kathy was calling for me during this. She is professional at that, and she calls for all of us. Pete calls for her when she flies.
During my flight, one of my options was my new Wing-Wag maneuver. In this early stage, my roll to the right was proper, but I couldn’t get as far a roll to the left. But I tried it.

I tried to come in for a landing, and in all of this turbulence the wind smacked me onto ground from about two feet up. This made my prop drag, which killed my engine. There went a HUGE batch of landing/taxi points.

At the end of my flight, Pete walked up to me and said, “You did your whole routine!” This was in reaction to my previously having said that I would cut it short to save my plane.

That afternoon, I had been suffering in the heat and humidity, and my Team T-shirt had become really soaked in sweat. As I walked back to the hangar, two of our RC pilots pointed to my wet shirt and said, “HEAT EXHAUSTION!”

Whereupon I shagged it to the cafeteria and bought three bags of potato chips with sea salt. I wolfed down two immediately and saved the other for tomorrow. My shirt was dry again in 40-45 minutes. Lesson learned.

Afterward the relay ended, back at the hangar, various repairs were being undertaken across CL and RC. A couple of RC pilots from other countries brought tools and materials to our area and left them for use as needed. We didn’t know who they were, so the next day, when the tools were still on the table, we left mementos for them to have when they retrieved their stuff.

The pull on my lines was so severe that my shoulder sustained a really bad strain. I was in a LOT of pain. I didn’t know if I would be able to make a second flight, another day. Kathy mentioned that Pete uses a shoulder brace.

That afternoon in the hangar, Mike and I compared notes. He said, “I didn’t think it was possible to fly in this wind.”

“I didn’t think it was possible to fly in this wind”, I concurred. In 1987 at the Nats in Lincoln Neb., I had flown my A-26 in a 12-13 mph wind, just barely, but that wind was steady with no turbulence. With the turbulence we were having in Buckminster, now, the average wind was around 15 mph.

Stormier

The weather was forecast to worsen even further for three days, so Control Line stood down. RC, however, kept at it, as they don’t have the unique circling problems with the winds that we do. The judges allowed them to adjust their main flying axis in accordance with the wind direction.

Sometime during all of this, I was in the cafeteria when I heard the unmistakable sound of a Merlin engine wide open, flying overhead at less that 150 feet! I glanced out the door and glimpsed a huge model of a Hurricane buzzing us. Dang, these models sure are realistic. If you had seen the World Scale models in the hangar, you would have guessed as I did that this was a perfect model. Oh no, me bucko! This was a full-size Hurricane that came up from Duxford to give us a thrill. The next day, another Hurricane came and did the same thing. On the third day, it was a full-size Spitfire! The airshow that each of these planes put on is best described metaphorically: THEY PICKED US UP AND SHOOK US LIKE A RAG DOLL! Minimum altitudes at some point, maybe 100 feet.

On the third idle day, some of us CL pilots journeyed south to the Duxford Imperial War Museum. I rode with Pete and Kathy as Mike and Marsha were doing their own thing. Mike had set a goal to drink one of every beer available in England. And he made it. Except for two: “I’d die first before I drank that…stuff.”

The museum complex at Duxford is so huge they have a shuttle bus to take you from one end to the other. There were three giant hangars, each packed with planes under restoration. We got to walk through the hangars and see so many projects. There were enough flyable Spitfires for half of a squadron. The same was true for Hurricanes. We got to sit in Queen Elizabeth II’s royal airliner, and HS 146, below.

The HS 146 — A plane with an attitude: “Are you talkin’ ta ME???” Orin Humphries photo.

At Duxford there is also the American Air Museum in Britain. I am a plank owner in that museum. It is packed with planes!

Third day

After three days of stormier weather, CL resumed for the third round. The sky was still overcast from the stand-down storm so the heat was gone. However, the baseline of the wind was still 9 mph, and the gusts were now a good 21 mph.

Kathy’s flight, (this might actually have been on her second flight) was going along well enough, when the turbulence bounced her landing up a couple of feet. She chose, and wisely so in my estimation, to execute a go-around rather than risk worsening bounces. She settled into an approach at two feet for another lap before trying to and again. This time, her landing was acceptable. I made a mental note of this strategy.

Mike put up a truly championship performance with his stellar L-4.

I was called up, and — no joy, once, again. Upon release my Stinson again did an immediate tight circle inward! I hit the kill switch and jogged out to see what had happened this time. My steerable tail wheel had been facing backwards, and I had not detected that in my pre-flight inspection.

You see, I had worked out a new routine to get my heavy plane and my kit over the quarter mile to the circle in one trip, saving a half-mile extra walking. I had watched all of the RC pilots move their giant models by grasping the tail, raising it off the ground, and towing it backwards across the campus.

This time, I looped a rope around the tail of my Stinson and raised the tail off the ground. The rope was in one hand and my kit was in the other. I made it halfway to the circle when I had to switch hands. As I then took tension on the rope and started to walk, the tailwheel had been reversed by the ground.

When the inspector-designate looked at my plane, I showed him that the tailwheel could actually turn 360 degrees. I explained how it had wound up reversed, and he graciously granted me a re-fly for at the end of the relay. I respect my BMFA Hosts.

I sat out much of the time back up in the hangar, watching the CL flights through the opening. I was surprised to see that every flight that I witnessed was nowhere near up to and holding six meters. They were weaving all over the space between six meters and the ground.
Later on, then, the relay was done and the three of us were called for re-flies. This time I checked my tailwheel and got a good release. I did not do my S-taxi this time as it was not yet up to giving me a competitive score for that maneuver. I taxied straight along. I stopped in front of the judges, and Kathy called, “Takeoff, now!” I held my plane, rolling on the mains, until three-quarters of the lap were used. Then, I flew it off and made a really gradual, scale-like climb-out for this type. This took a second lap before I was at the requisite six meters cruising altitude. I heard Kathy call, “TAKEOFF COMPLETE”!

The pull was less than on my first flight, but it was still HUGE. The pain was hard to take. Would my shoulder make it through this flight? The turbulence was trying to mess with me, but I held my six meters well. I went through my routines, flaps down for three grueling laps at two meters and a little less in the turbulence. I next did slow flight for three laps, and that, of course, was a “qualified” slow; we had to keep the lines tight on the upwind side, so none of us got high scores for the lower speed. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed lowering and raising my flaps for each of these options. I’ve never had flaps before.

I reached the point in the routine for the touch and go, and I set up a good-enough approach. When I got down to two feet, a gust slammed me onto the ground, again, stopping my prop. Good-bye huge points. But, I had not crashed, and my shoulder had made it through this ordeal.

As I was clearing off of the circle with the help of my great teammates, the head judged walked around the fence to the gate and entered the circle, and walking up to me. “You made a good flight,” he said, referring to my maintenance of the six meters. Either Kathy or Mike offered, “You had the best takeoff.”

Two other re-flies followed my flight with troubles from the turbulence, and the Ukrainian model again bonked hard enough to break its tail off for a second time in a row.

With that, Control Line Scale at the 2026 World Championships was over. The secession was deafening.

We’d done it in impossible conditions, overcome shipment damage, repaired crashes…

And we had come together as a brotherhood.

Two months later my shoulder was still far from right and I was headed to Physical therapy.

Next time, The Conclusion. (How was the pizza?)