The pilots have spoken!

The scale section of IRCHA will be back at the old location with no competition and no involvement by HeliStorm. In other words, things will be just as they have been in years past. Pilots who paid to compete or simply display their models have already received a full refund of the competition portion of their registration fee. Pilots who paid for IRCHA registration will still have that applied by the IRCHA folks as we had originally planned. In short, everyone can just show up, check in at the IRCHA desk and fly as in years past!

To understand my rationale for returning the status quo to the IRCHA scale experience, I invite you to appreciate the context of HeliStorm and why it came to be.

When I created the HeliStorm concept in 2023, my goal was to expose our hobby to the general public and, in particular, to students who might not otherwise be exposed to either our hobby or opportunities within the aviation industry at large. In the process of executing on that vision, I was also keenly aware of the state of our hobby. Most of us are well over the hill and have at least some disposable income to support the handful of vendors who get us what we need and want when we want it. They are the backbone of our hobby. Think about vendors like Mark Smith, Tyler Gray, Danny Melnik, Bernd Bremmer (HeliFactory) and Kirsten Zodtner (Vario) to name a few. How long do you think they can run profitable businesses as our community shrinks? The answer: NOT LONG.

I have always believed in the power of consolidating a community to create mass appeal. To address the shrinking numbers in our hobby, I conceived of an event like none other. I formed a 501(c)(3) and organized students, our crowd, RC vendors, the United States military branches and the largest manufacturers in the helicopter industry to come together at a remarkable event at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Weather notwithstanding, the event was a fantastic success. In a full-page editorial, the former editor-in-chief of Air & Space Magazine singled out HeliStorm as the most innovative recruiting event he had ever seen in the helicopter industry.

Then, unexpectedly, Bert Kammerer, who runs the IRCHA Jamboree, asked me if I could get scale pilots to the 2026 event. Nobody had shown up the year before and in years prior to that, attendance had been weak. I was intrigued so I orchestrated a meeting with Tyler Gray, Mark Smith, Danny Melnik and Gonzalo Martinez to help formulate what a HeliStorm @ IRCHA event would look like. I imagined that reinvigorating competition in our segment of the hobby might lead to some exciting future events that the public might attend.

In the ensuing weeks, with lots of input from Darrell Sprayberry, Danny Melnik and Mark Smith, I crafted a completely new set of contest rules for our hobby; rules that were less onerous and complex than the AMA contest rules and ones that welcomed pilots of all skills and experience. I had my software team build a special rubric in LiveJudge.com so we would have a turnkey package to run a scale event. Finally, after consulting several advisors and attending pilots, we arranged for the flying site to be moved to a much larger and safer area. The old site has power lines, homes, a road and trees. It is not very deep or safe for competition in my view. We then set up the competitions and launched registration.

What followed was a steady stream of objections to nearly every aspect of the event as newly structured. As late as June 27th, I have been made aware of pilots who question the location, the competition, the logistics and other aspects of the event. As my wife is fond of reminding me, "the messages get louder until you finally hear them."

I get it. I hear you. The last thing I want to do is create angst in a HOBBY.

Accordingly, I have elected to remove HeliStorm from IRCHA and focus on what I believe will be a far more productive direction — one that perfectly matches the mission of the HeliStorm nonprofit. I am currently in discussions with a professional sports team about a collaboration that will have HeliStorm, the USAF and Horizon Hobby working in local areas to bring scale helicopters directly into the classroom, where they will have the most impact. This is PRECISELY the aim of the nonprofit.

I sincerely thank the 17 pilots who signed up. I also thank Danny Melnik and Mark Smith who have spent far too much time on the phone with me navigating the process. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to host a scale competition is more than welcome to use the new rulebook and LiveJudge software to make it happen!

I wish everyone good luck and good flying. I'm sure I'll see many of you at events around the country. 

Michael Kranitz