CD's

[Earl Haury]

John covers most of the points. It's important to recognize that the class 
that someone competes in only addresses his / her flying skills, not judging 
skills. Our certification process is the basis for ensuring that everyone 
has taken a look at the rules and been exposed to discussion of the finer 
points. Judging skills may advance much more quickly than flying skills if a 
little work is applied, so it's important for CD's to inquire as to where 
individuals fit in and use them in their judging matrix accordingly.

A ranking system incorporated into out cert process would certainly be 
useful, however the methodology for arriving at a proper ranking is not 
without difficulty. Maybe group (non competition) judging of several flights 
during the certification event, with scores compared to the "experienced" 
judges used for ranking (a real judging test)? Of course the logistics of 
this, considering many cert programs are conducted during the offseason when 
weather precludes much flying, are also difficult.

The best answer may be some sort of electronic flight scoring system that 
handles geometry, box limits, centering, and distance, leaving only the 
subjective smoothness / gracefulness to the judges. Just think - all of the 
objective elements, that we're all sure that we do correctly, would be 
accurately scored every time! Dean - you should be able to handle the 
hardware, just make sure that it's simple to use, light, cheap, and 
accurate. Would this ever make a great practice tool!

Earl

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Ferrell" <johnferrell at earthlink.net>
To: <discussion at nsrca.org>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 6:59 AM
Subject: Re: CD's


>I have been at this for about ten years and I will never really be a good 
>contestant.
> Here are a few of my observations:
> Some of our best judges don't fly at all.
> Many of our top flyers are poor judges, sometimes because they simply are 
> not interested in being a good judge.
> Some people who know the rules cannot apply them fairly.
> Most entry level pilots have enough to worry with their flying without 
> adding juding to the load.
> When we do a local judging seminar the raw judging scores of the two 
> judges get a lot closer together.
> The person presenting the Judging Seminar is not there to interrpret the 
> rules. His/her duty is to present the package and facilitate orderly 
> discussion.
> An overly criticized judge will avoid conflict at the expense of accuracy.
> All judges make mistakes. If judges were perfect we would only need one 
> per line.
> Poor judges miss downgrades. Their scores tend to be higher.
> A judge that downgrades items not documented in the rules is corrupt.
> Judging is getting better all the time but it will never meet contestant 
> expectations.
> Masters and FAI flyers are more comfortable judging each other.
> The most important quality of a judge is his motivation to be a good 
> judge.
> You can do a pretty good job of judging even if you don't know the 
> sequence. You will miss the call when a wrong maneuver is flown.
> A maneuver that takes longer to call than it does to fly is difficult to 
> judge fairly.
> The rules are not clearly defined and the current process is not likely to 
> improve them.
> The whole FAI game is out of our hands.
>
> John Ferrell
> My Competition is not my enemy!
> http://DixieNC.US
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jeff H. Snider" <jeff at snider.com>
> To: <discussion at nsrca.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 5:57 PM
> Subject: Re: CD's
>
>
>> Coming from outside, I'm amazed we don't have a process for ranking
>> judges in this sport.  It may be that a Sportsman has keen eyes and
>> a good understanding of the rules, and can capably judge Masters,
>> or even FAI, even though he doesn't yet have the skill to compete
>> in Intermediate.  It may also be that a Masters pilot lacks the
>> proper temperment or attention span and can't consistently judge
>> an entire round of any class.
>
>
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