Pattern Fun / scribe / Judging

[Tomanek, Wojtek]

Ok, we spend hours and hours building the planes (or work a lot at regular
jobs and pay for someone to build the plane), setting the planes, trimming,
and then practicing, and learning our sequences.  We also need to find time
to learn the other sequences.  If there are no opportunities at local field,
pay attention to the sequences in the early rounds of a contest and maybe
that will be enough to be able to judge the last round, or at the next
contest. Use the contests to learn and not just hang out with friend.
Scribing is a good way to learn too.

As a judge one has the responsibility to the pilot being judged and others
in the contest to not only be familiar but know the sequence very well and
easily identify small but crucial errors (say in the FAI  snap followed by
point rolls in the OPPOSITE direction - wrong direction will earn you zero).
Reading the sequence is not enough, seeing it flown numerous times correctly
is a must in my book.  Eric is correct that some of the maneuver
descriptions are too long to be announced just before the maneuver without
interfering with the judging and the pilot's concentration.  My call sheet
has certain words bolded in the description and I always ask the caller to
only read the bolded stuff, so I only have to be reminded of what is coming
up but not the entire maneuver description, for instance: 
      "triangle" means "triangle with two out of four point rolls"          
      "square" means "square form the top with half rolls in first and third
leg"
But that is certainly not enough for the unfamiliar judge.

The bottom line is that it is the judges responsibility to KNOW the sequence
he/she is judging.  If you are asked to judge and you are not familiar with
the sequence - tell the CD that you are not comfortable judging this class,
he will find someone else.  In the past I have declined to judge FAI when I
was not familiar with the sequence.  If I cannot judge to the best of my
abilities because I do not know the sequence I do not want to judge and
should not be allowed either - there are no excuses on this issue. 

Wojtek




	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Henderson,Eric [SMTP:eric.henderson at gartner.com]
	Sent:	Monday, September 23, 2002 9:12 AM
	To:	discussion at nsrca.org
	Subject:	RE: Pattern Fun / scribe / Judging

	I had this "Call the maneuver " request forced on me at the Nat's
when I was flying Advanced. The problem was it happened at the flight line
and flight time. The bigger problem was that Michelle was trained to call
two maneuvers at a time. Turnaround and then center, so I knew what to set
up for. Result total confusion. (Great excuse for a bad flight too)
	As a direct result from protests, by other pilots, the judge was
removed.  The round was not re-flown however, due to time restraints. The
judge has no right to require the caller or the pilot to shout out the
maneuver.
	Scribes have a duty to tell the judge what the next maneuver is.
Unfortunately some of the descriptions are so long that the maneuver is over
before the scribe finishes the read out. A system where the judge can read
the maneuver does work, but does require end or center judging.  
	It makes no difference whether one judge or two judges judge all the
maneuvers when you only have two judges on the flight line.
	Regards,
	Eric


	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Mark Wendt [mailto:wendt at kingcrab.nrl.navy.mil]
<mailto:[mailto:wendt at kingcrab.nrl.navy.mil]> 
	Sent:	Monday, September 23, 2002 6:31 AM
	To:	discussion at nsrca.org <mailto:discussion at nsrca.org> 
	Subject:	Re: Pattern Fun / scribe / Judging


	Larry,
	I'm with you 100%.  Two wrongs don't make a right.  Like you I
wasn't there, and I'm sure there were circumstances involved we know nothing
about.  And not knowing what class the pilot was flying, he may have been up
to his neck in alligators if he was in one of the lower classes, and the
additional pressure and strain introduced by the judge was unnecessary.  The
pilot was no longer concentrating solely on the flight, which can cause
safety of flight issues.  At a busy contest, with two lines, this can cause
real problems.
	I think the issues leading up to the confrontation should be handled
at the pilots meeting, before any fuel is pumped, and laid to rest there.
The issue of the pilot/caller needing or not needing to call the maneuver to
the judge should be gone over before the contest gets under way, so that
everyone is singing from the same sheet of music.
	And hard feelings generated by an incident such as this can have
some big repercussions.  The other pilots, seeing this display may think,
well if this contest has judges like this, I'm not going to come back.  Or,
on the other hand, if the judges see shouting back and forth between pilot
and judge, and the CD lets them get away with it, they may not come back and
judge.  It's a two-edged sword.  Hopefully, the CD handled this situation in
a dignified and diplomatic way, the contest got back under way, and there
were no hard feelings after the fact.
	Mark

	At 11:26 AM 9/22/2002 -0500, you wrote:
		>Mark,
		>
		>I agree with you that it's was unprofessional for the judge
to act in the
		>manner described. However, two wrongs don't make it right.
More often than
		>not, the second foul draws the flag or penalty.
		>
		>There are probably a number of different ways for the CD to
handle this and
		>perhaps the CD did handle it well. None the less, a yelling
match should
		>never happen during a contest. The pilot should not have
engaged the judge
		>even if the judge was unfair. The pilot should have plead
the case to the
	CD
		>after the flight. A number of possible remedies could have
been made by the
		>CD which could have been  to allow the pilot to scrub that
flight and make
		>it up at the end of the round; or, scrub the round, replace
the judge and
		>redo the round.
		>
		>I would hope, and state during a pilot meeting if I was a
CD, that a judge
		>and/or pilot give me the opportunity to resolve a problem
instead of taking
		>it into there own hands. In the situation described I'm
certain that it
		>removed an element of fun and camaraderie for a period of
time or for the
		>whole event for that matter. The situation wasn't fair to
the majority of
		>participants and the CD, setting aside the judge and the
pilot involved.
		>
		>I wasn't there and I'm sure there are two sides to the
story, so I can't
	say
		>how I would have handled it. However, based on what I
understand for the
	big
		>picture the pilot should have been held accountable to the
rule book. The
		>level of accountability is very subjective and depends on
the severity of
		>the conflict. To your point, perhaps the judge should have
been held
		>accountable as well. Perhaps they both were...
		>
		>Larry

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