Judging Behavior

[Ron Van Putte]

  I can vouch for what Tony said below.  I was the U.S. judge at the 
1995 F3A World Championships in Kasaoka, Japan.  Several of the judges 
called out the scores to their scribes and I could hear them.  I could 
scarcely believe some of the scores I heard; some even came before the 
maneuver was over!

Ron Van Putte

Tony Stillman wrote:

My background as a three-time USA Team Manager (now about to be four, as I will be TM for the USA this year in Poland...) and CD for the 1999 World Champs, I have set through several Judge training sessions at the WC.

To say I was disipointed would be a major understatement!  Many of the judges only judge at one or two contests over a two year period!  Beside the lack of experiance, the questions that they asked during the training session were those that you would expect to hear from a Sportsman pilot who has never attended a contest before!  A re-occuring issue was that most thought that if you went out of the box, even just barely, it was a zero! Some didn't understand that the takeoff and landings were scored a zero or 10.  It was very sad.

I can remember going back from a meeting to share what I had heard with the pilots and during the trip my assistant team manager and I decided it was best to not go into these details with them.  How do you prepair pilots for flying in front of judges who don't even know the basics of the job?  I just told them to fly their best, just as they had done at the team trials.  There were some specific items addressed at the meeting such as the center of a spin, but overall I was suprised by the lack of experience and very basic questions presented by the judges to the Cheif Judge (which was Ron Chidgey).

Ron spoke about distance, but it was very obvious that this was a "fine point" to these judges, and Ron had much bigger "fish to fry" making sure that the got judging basics down.

Now, with all that said, I don't have a lot of confidance in the overall quality of judges used at at WC.  I would much rather have the group of judges we use every year at our Nats for Masters and FAI finals!

This gets us back to the distance issue.  It is touchy, but the rules for FAI are pretty black and white.  If the model is past the 175 meter point, it should be downgraded.  Figuring that distance may be difficult, but that is the rule.  The further out you go from there, additional points should be taken off.  If a pilot elects to fly at that distance, that's fine, but there should be no question that he should have points deducted on each manuever that he is past the 175 meter line.

It is not easy to fly this kind of line, especially in wind, but many can do it and make it look wonderful.  It is easy to judge because you can see the model so well, even in the corners due to the close-in location.  The people that can do this should score better than those who can't, and the rule is there to back this up.

Local events should be inforcing this as well, after all, the contestants do the judging and they need to follow the rule.  In many local events everyone is flying out.  That's fine, but be aware that the distance issue is always there, and should be accounted for.

If you start using the throttle, you will find that you too can learn to fly in.  It takes practice, but it can be done.  I am still learning, and I'm not the best pilot out there, that's for sure!  However, during the NATS last year, I was first up on my line.  A fellow FAI pilot and friend Raiko
Potter took off first on the other line.  He finished the first center maneuver before I was allowed to start
my airplane, and I finished the flight and landed before he did!  I was flying at 140 to 150 meters, and Raiko always flies farther out.  I didn't mind, because I was not worried about a mid-air!

Just my $0.02 worth....

Tony Stillman
Radio South, Inc.
3702 N. Pace Blvd.
Pensacola, Fl 32505
www.radiosouthrc.com
800-962-7802


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