Performance Judging? Trial Balloon

[Steven Maxwell]

 Something that might help is every contest do a demo flight that all judge, although I find it hard to have a group together that isn't BS'ing while they should be doing something constructive, this could be used as data base that could be kept, rated, and reveiwed if you had a MASTER Judge to go by.
 Steve Maxwell


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Grow Pattern 
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Sent: 8/3/2005 8:57:47 AM 
Subject: Re: Performance Judging? Trial Balloon



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Grow Pattern 
To: discussion at nsrca.org 
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: Performance Judging? Trial Balloon


What I saw, round after round, was the judges who used a pad or the side of the sheet, use the whole landing sequence to transfer their scores into the right boxes. 

As regards looking own or away from the plane, there are maneuvers where you can, maneuvers where you check for center and end poles etc. There is nothing written in the rules that says you can't glance away! 

Not naming names, but a few years ago I videoed several of the chief proponents of "not looking down- notepad users" while they were judging. Guess what? They looked down multiple times and sometimes every time to find a position for their pencil. One contestants caller couldn't take it any more and stormed up to the judges line and told one of them that they were looking down all of the time. Didn't get that one on video would have been a good one for training???

Looking down is often an unconscious act and probably does not affect the scoring ability of the judges. Being distracted is more of a severe problem. If you miss a maneuver or component of a maneuver you write NO (Not observed). They'll average the other judges score. If all of the judges miss it the pilot should get a 10 :-)

Here is an item that I think needs to be addressed. In this day of mandatory landing procedures the pilot has to turn - turn - land. They have no options. At least one judge needs to be designated as a person to "clear" that pilot for landing,  Another pilot could be landing, taking off or a plane handler could still be on the runway.

Eric.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Steven Maxwell 
To: discussion at nsrca.org 
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: Performance Judging? Trial Balloon


 Terry I don't use scribes because I find them to confusing, theres times when I have heard the same maneuver being called 3 time using 2 judges, then you have the cases when the scribe ask you questions breaking your concentration, I was talking to a masters pilot at the Nat's and he said I missed a maneuver, he did a 3 of 4 up instead of doing it down, I scored him as if the maneuver was right, the kicker is that so did the judge with a scribe, Judging isn't perfect a long as the human element is there, if at the Nat's I use RVP method using the legal pad for writing down score then transferring to the score sheet only takes a minute, I ask Don Ramsey last year at the Nat's about looking down, there's no real rules on what happens between the straight lines from an exit of one maneuver and the entrance of the next straight line, it's just not clarified in the rule book, there are places in all schedules that have very long lines inbetween maneuvers this is the place if needed to look down, and I only do this at local contest where legal pads aren't available.
 I may not be the best judge but I do always strive to be fair and honest, my method will not work for everyone, but it's best for me.
 Steve Maxwell  


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Terry Hemmis 
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Sent: 8/2/2005 11:33:57 AM 
Subject: Re: Performance Judging? Trial Balloon


Well said by both of you, Jim and Eric.  

It is quite true that judging has it's issues. One I noticed is that there are not always 
scribes for judging flights in the upper levels. This means that for some judges, they 
look down a lot to see what the next maneuver may be or to write the score...if a 
judge doesn't know what they are looking for [a simple example is a 2 of 4 not a half 
roll, they could miss it].  This can be a blessing for the pilot...or problematic for the
other pilots.

If it is known who the judges are, then perhaps their effort at scoring would be much more
accurate...

Just my humble opinion...

Terry  
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