Sport Aerobatics
President's Page March 2001
by Rob Dorsey
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No IAC Championships? What happened?
We, your IAC Board of Directors and I, are acutely aware that many competitors are wondering why we have not scheduled an JAG Championship/Championship of the Americas (CotA) in 2001. The decision was driven by practicality and historical reality. First the practical: IAC needs a hosting Chapter for a contest held away from Headquarters. We had a hosting Chapter in Florida, Chapter 23, but it had to pull out due to the tragic loss of their chapter president in an aerobatic crash
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It is true that there was another suitor but it needed an immediate answer and large amounts of logistic help because the venue was nice but small. This contest takes a lot of facilities so rushing into a deal with the offering Chapter did not seem prudent. The decision, then, was made to bypass the CotA this year, regardless of any future plans.
The historical reasoning is even more compelling. In the 1970s when our club was young, (and, come to think of it, so was I) the National Aerobatic Championships were the bastion of the Aerobatic Club of America, the ACA. The ACA was the holder of the authorization from the NAA to sanction all aerobatic contests in the U.S. and to select and field the U.S. Aerobatic Team, all things that IAC now does. All through the ‘70s lAC had to go to ACA for contest sanctions and the U.S. National Acrobatic Championships were ACA’s event. In, 1974 I think, IAC President Mike Heuer came up with the idea of IAC having its own championship to compete with the ACA, U.S. Nationals. It was a barefaced challenge to be sure but, what the heck, if we compete we are, most probably, competitors, right? So we set about putting on a contest at Fond du Lac to vie with the US Nationals. This went on for eight years until, in 1982, when NAA transferred acrobatic sanctioning authority from ACA to IAC and we became the U.S. aerobatic sanctioning body. We, IAC, now controlled the US Nationals and selected the US Acrobatic Team. With me so far? Good, because now it gets complicated.
If the IAC Championship at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was intended to compete with the U.S. Nationals and we now put on the U.S. Nationals, then who was competing with whom? To be sure, Fond du Lac, as the IAC Championship had come to be caned, was a great contest in those days and, with the inclusion of some FAI, international medals to attract foreign pilots, "Fondy" became known as the IAC Championships/Championship of the Americas (CotA).
It was all pretty easy. Fond du Lac is just 22 miles from Oshkosh, could be run by volunteers and JAG staffers and was usually timed to occur just after EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. All very fun. But like all good parties, it died down after a while, and sagging attendance, coupled with problems with the FBO, led to the decision to "take it on the road" so to speak. The first traveling venue at Chandler, Arizona, was a great success due to the hard work and enthusiasm of the local IAC Chapter. While it was very early in the year and basically excluded the Midwestern and Northeastern pilots, it was great for the Southwest and California crowd. That success is basically the reason for planning the next CotA at Homestead, Florida, for 2001. That, however, was not meant to be, and with its demise many realized that the lAC Championships had become just a big, itinerant regional contest. It, arguably, had lost much of its identity with the move from Fond du Lac.
What we all need to ask ourselves is, why would we fund and staff a big contest intended to compete with our very own U.S. Nationals? The IAC Championships, while great fun for Midwesterners, became redundant with the transfer of sanctioning authority from ACA to IAC in 1982. Wouldn’t the JAG membership be better served if we discontinued the IAC Championship, rolled the Championship of the Americas, FAT medals, and all the energy expended on CotA into our U.S. Nationals and make it one, great, acrobatic shindig! In my opinion it is a terrific solution and, due to the lack of a suitable venue, we are forced to try it out this year. Come on down to Texas on Labor Day and let’s see what we can pull off. You may never miss "Fondy" again.
