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Bryan Mailloux · 09-09-2012, 04:54 PM

I think ron s means that during the unknowns you have a caller behind telling the judges what is supposed to be flown including all elements. This really free's up the judge from missing something that was on the aresti.
This past wknd I was able to call the unknow unlimited seq. for the judges. It worked quite well. This is not a new concept. The judges or cd should organize this.

**Frank Klenk** · 09-09-2012, 05:03 PM

I've been to contests where this was done and yep, it's a good idea.

Guglielmo · 09-09-2012, 09:01 PM

After Following this forum I realized it is one tough issue to crack. From your thoughts ( I might repeat what was said) and from some of my experiences, I decided to ask myself this question what qualities should a perfect judge have?

1. Know the rule book and the Aresti be fluent in reading / scoring them. With or without help .(caller and scribes)
2. Be familiar with the classes you will be asked to judge prior to contests.
3. Focus and be attentive to every flight. The Pilot deserves it.
4. Be able to see mistakes and stand by your decision.
5. Be consistent with all your scoring.
6. Be unbiased / impartial to the pilots.
7. Keep an open mind to varying flight dynamics of different models.
8. Should be (kept) comfortable during long periods of judging.
9. Should be able to communicate the flight performance in a positive manner to pilot requesting it.
10. Not necessarily be a (good,great) pilot but know your limits.

I think this sums it up if I forgot anything please add to list. Point is ,it is a daunting task. We sometimes because of quantity we sacrifice quality ,meaning maybe we should start choosing the judges that are more “comfortable” in judging ( as Isabel stated)and have proven themselves to a certain degree, before a contest ( more so for the higher classes).If too few judges are available(ie.. one needs to call for the pilot etc…) then this should be dealt as a separate issue.

We sometimes try to get in so many flights in a day that we overlook the judges , it is not easy judging for a couple of hours in the hot sun and then running for a bathroom break and back again. I remember Sudbury Nats where I think we had a crazy no of advanced or Intermediate Pilots ,I was judging and every so often Lee would come by and offer water or Coffee, what a difference that made.Thanks LEE.

Unfortunately the “Bias “ is really tough …because we are for most all friends and competitors .We can minimize this by asking oneself if you have a personal “issue “ with a pilot and if you cannot put that aside then don’t judge ( conflict of interest) that class, the pilot worked hard and deserves all fairness regardless of personal issues. We can ask to judge a different class if we wish to help out.
Hopefully this will help a little.

I believe we should provide the best possible judges without exception (of course in a perfect world) but won’t hurt if we start moving towards that direction. If we do not have adequate judges then we have a real problem.

I also believe this is a positive evolution of SA in Canada , addressing these issues will only make us better pilots in the end and understand the beauty of SA a little more.

P.S. In a nutshell Judges are an integral and serious part Of IMAC. WOW I should have just said that instead of typing 3000 words lol

Guglielmo

isabel · 09-10-2012, 07:15 AM

One more thing I was thinking about. Maybe at contests we could have a little judging training clinic. During regular flying, let's say sportsman is flying, in parallel to the actual judging, line up the basic guys (or anyone wanting some practice) in a tent with a qualified judge and do 'coached' practice judging. For one flight, focus on one thing, for example, roll centering - after each maneuver, the basic judges say what they think the deductions would be for centering, and the qualified judge also (& discuss if needed). Next flight, matching radii, wings level, whatever. Discuss any peculiar situations as they come up ('Is this really a flyover? Is this over the deadline? How do you penalize a break in the sequence like this? Is that a snap? Spin entry? etc). It's possible the CD is too busy to run this, if you are an experience judge at a contest I think you can go up to the CD and offer to run this for a round.

The theory is essential to cover, but there's no learning like hands-on learning

* * * *

Guglielmo, for your list, I really like #10. Along those lines, if you are judging and there is a rule that you are not sure about, you always have the option to make a note and check afterwards (with the CD or the rulebook)... every once in a while a situation happens and I have a little nagging doubt about the appropriate deduction (first contest of the year... a little rusty... wasn't 100% sure what was the deduction for a missing line both before and after the roll... 2 or 4 points?). At the Stetson contest, a deadstick situation happened that different people disagreed about, I emailed the details to Wayne Matthews from IMAC on Saturday night and by Sunday morning he had confirmed what we thought, that is always an option.

LEE · 09-10-2012, 09:44 AM

A few notes on judging that helped at Stoney Creek. After flying some of us asked the unlimited pilots for pointers. Ivan K was wonderful with his constructive criticism with Ted B. and I and after some discussions with Nick and Ivan Pinzon and Mike Milos I came away with a much better understanding of what I needed work on (snaps and line presentation)
We had a very hard time getting people even from Intermediate to judge Advanced and so the upper classes ended up doing all the judging for each other (advanced for unlimited and vice versa).
What we need to get are more people calling for upper classes and this then forces you to learn what is involved in the sequence. Case in point was my getting Eric Rominger to call for me. He flies Sportsman and at first was hesitant until I assured him he only needed to call the major manoever and a few critical turns and I knew the rest. Once he went over it with me he did a great job and realized how enlightening it was. Judging from this step would not be a major leap so the point I"m making is
1) get everyone at all levels comfortable with reading aresti
2) try to get pilots from the lower classes to call for you
3) everyone from Intermediate and up should be attending seminars and be able to call at all levels
4) Dont be afraid of constructive criticism and ask for help..learning never stops even at the top level.

robm · 09-25-2012, 08:46 AM

It seems to me everyone wants inexperienced judges to step it up. I will admit that I am one of the judges that could use some help. I have taken everyone’s advice and done the online training, attended a seminar in the off season and scribe for the upper classes when I can.
Now my question is… who wants me to practice on them first? For some it will work out great when I miss that zero you should have gotten, and for others, you’ll have to take it in stride or complain about my best efforts.
I’m yet to hear someone complain about getting scored for something they know they have zeroed by the way!

What I am proposing is that we need to start having some sort of practical training. I have had a few conversations with the guy’s in my skill level and they are starting to feel the same way. The only place for us to get hands on training is while some poor pilot is in the air at a competition. Do you really want me judging you knowing I’m not going to be consistent to the rule book?
In my opinion there is only one way to judge and that is to the rule book. All the other opinions of just “try your best” and “just as long as you’re consistent” are what lead to the “we need to step up the judging” discussions.

A few weeks ago in Stoney Creek I asked a few judges to make it clear to me what they were deducting for in the upper classes and it was very helpful but things were easy to see when they’re pointed out. After the first pilot was done I though I was good to go! To my surprise I found I was only able to do proper deductions every other maneuver. Things were just happening to fast for me to keep up and do proper deductions as I seen them. That led to the impression scoring we all know and love.

What I think we (I) need are practical seminars. It would be nice if we could run mini seminars before we even start a competition. Or like Isabel said in a separate tent while the competition is running. Whatever is easier it just needs to happen. Let me judge someone flying Advanced or Unlimited and discuss with me the things I am missing and need to be watching for. You tell me when I’m ready to judge the upper classes so we can stop having these complaints that are taking the fun out of this!

rbwater · 09-29-2012, 12:16 AM

Greetings,

I hope that the contributors to this thread who obviously include some very experienced IMAC pilots/judges will bear with me if I ask a few basic questions. I hope to participate in a couple of contests next year and have been looking at the rules & associated "Official Flying and Judging Guide" to see what is involved in the judging aspect. One thing I was trying was to see if I could create an objective algorithm that a computer could use to judge a figure (say a loop). Without implying any criticism of the rules or those who wrote them, I am having some difficulty putting some items in an objective form that would be needed for a computer to do this.

For example, Section 7.1 says, "All figures begin and end on definite horizontal lines, and both must be present in order to earn a good grade. A competitor who rushes from one figure to another, without showing this horizontal and well-recognizable line will be downgraded by one (1) point for each missing line in each figure affected."

Elsewhere, the rules say that line lengths are generally not a judgable criteria but if so what is the minimum distance to meet the above criteria?

In Section 6.2, it says, "A figure is complete at the moment the aircraft returns to a wings-level, horizontal flight path of one fuselage plane length .... Once a horizontal flight path of one fuselage plane length is established at the end of a figure, the beginning of the next figure is deemed to have occurred ... If an aircraft does not return to wingslevel, horizontal flight before commencing the next figures the one (1) point per figure deduction will be applied."

Does this mean that 1 fusalage length of "wings level, horizontal flight" is enough to meet the Section 7.1 criteria?

Another example is the maintaining of a constant radius in a loop. The rules say

"8.7.2: Family 7.5 - 7.6: Full loops. All full loops must appear perfectly round to the judge (Fig. 31)."

"2. A variation in the radius will be a one point deduction per occurrence."

What is meant by an "occurrence?" Does it mean that if anywhere in the loop the radius varies that a total of one point is deducted or alternatively, for example, if the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of the loop all have different radii than the 1st quarter that 3 points should be deducted?

Similarly, with respect to "Aircraft displaying any roll other than during a roll element on the loop," is that assessed once for the entire loop based on the average angle off level or alternatively, for example, if the wings oscillate say from 15 degrees left from level to 15 degrees right from horizontal is that two deductions of 1.5 points each?

Please forgive the length of my posting. Hope someone has the patience to answer. Perhaps some or all of the points that I find ambiguous are dealt with by unwritten "conventions" that experienced judges are aware of. If so, I'd be very happy if those could be explained.

Thanks,

RB

isabel · 09-29-2012, 07:09 PM

Hi RB, welcome to the fray

I hope you join us next year.

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