Judging; (was: Displacement during snaps )

[Rcmaster199 at aol.com]

Several years ago, when I returned to Pattern after a 5 year departure, I  
had a conversation with Earl about judging; I used to be one who  thought that 
"....judging was better when.....". Earl suggested otherwise. I  have since 
changed my mind because I have seen for myself
 
Judging is far better now than it was in the "Good Old Days". "Better"  means 
higher "quality", more enlightened due to better definition of the  regs, 
more consistent due to multiple mandatory seminars on the subject (for  Nats 
attendees), seminars throughout the country by many dedicated to the sport  who 
try to preach the same message, a decent teaching video on the subject that  
helped many aspiring judges, etc. There are a bunch of reasons.
 
About the only thing that has remained the same is this: Judging remains a  
thankless and necessary job that every one of us must do to the best of his or  
her ability. Pattern dies without it. There is no question in my mind that  
we will never be able to get everyone to see, understand, remember all the  
specific downgrades and generally know everything there is to know about it,  
even if we could define absolutely everything. In fact, the more complex the  
definition, the lower the degree of retention. We can only try. 
 
Just like flying, practice is an important element and our exposure  will 
always be limited in that regard.
 
MattK
 
In a message dated 12/30/2004 7:44:53 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
divesplat at yahoo.com writes:

This is an interesting discussion.  At the Nats this year, I did my  snap, I 
thought, the same way as usual, except the nose didn't pitch this  time.  Dean 
Pappas gave me a zero, and the other 2 judges gave me 8's(or  so)..As I was 
flying and saw what happened I got a bad feeling in my gut.  

In this case, Dean was correct.  I wasn't mad because he was  correct, but it 
makes me wonder, at the Nats, where is the judging quality?(I  know, another 
whole subject.)  When I saw this same lack of break(which I  did see) I judged 
it a 0 also, and I feel accordingly.
 
If this entire discussion again demonstrates is that we will always have  
difference of opinion in regards to Snaps and Spins.
 
My other thought to the original quesion is if the plane is flying level  or 
not on a vertical line at the end of the box, or 1/4 rolled on center, who  
has good enough eyes to see a slight disposition?????
 
ed

Archie Stafford <rcpattern at comcast.net>  wrote:

It  is the pilots responsibility to demonstrate the maneuver, but it is  also
the judges responsibility to know what to look for. When several  pilots are
scored the same way 9, 9, and 0, then obviously, either 2 of  the judges or
the one judge are looking for different things. If it is a  rarity and
happens to one pilot then I will agree it is on the pilots  shoulders, but if
repeatedly "qualified" judges are scoring this way,  then there is obviously
a discrepancy in what the judges are looking  for.

You can do the exact same upline snap on a center maneuver and  on a turn
around maneuver, and due to the change in viewing angle, what  is scored as a
10 at the center may be a 0 at the end, even though they  were done exactly
the same. Now which of these is correct? Unfortunately  because of the
viewing angle, you will have to make the break on the end  maneuver much more
pronounced to be visible. If you did this the same way  on the center, you
would probably receive a much lower score because of  the presentation, when
the fact is that they were the exact same maneuver  and should've been scored
accordingly. Unless you have judges at the end  of the box specifically
judging this like they do at the Worlds then  there is no way to get this
correct.

-----Original  Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org  [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org] On
Behalf Of Dean Pappas
Sent:  Wednesday, December 29, 2004 12:52 PM
To:  discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: RE: Displacement during snaps ** del  klipped for reposting **

AMEN ... it's all on the pilot's  shoulders.





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