Snap or not K Factor

[Ed Alt]

Tried this once in Scale Aerobatics and it didn't go over real big.  Lots of complaints about the unpredictability and unfairness of tailslides led to lowering the K factor if memory serves correctly.  I think we also upped the K factor on rolling circles because they're freakin' hard, but at least you are managaing all elements all thre way through etc.  Anyway, a counter argument was that we had done a bad thing by tinkering with the K factors of what was officially established by CIVA.  The reset button was hit and these days other types of tinkering prevails there.  Life goes on...

Ed


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John Pavlick 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 12:41 AM
  Subject: RE: Snap or not K Factor


  Guys,
   Think about what Ron said. I know, traditionally we assign K factors based on a maneuver's difficulty. This appears to be sound logic and it is most of the time. The effect of this is that a well executed, difficult maneuver (high K-factor) contributes favorably to your score. And rightfully so. Conversely, a poorly executed, difficult maneuver really hurts your final score. Now all things considered, if everyone in your class flies the maneuver in question with the same level of competency, and it's fairly easy to judge, it all works out. The problem occurs when the high K-factor maneuver is judged differently based on the way it is flown, for whatever reason. Ron's idea is good, because even though the snaps are difficult maneuvers, having a low K-factor would lessen the impact of a mis-judged snap roll on your score. Right now it counts high enough to make a big difference even if one guy gets an 8 and another guy gets a 9. Until we can all agree on how to judge them so everyone has a fair shot, maybe it's a good solution. Maybe we're just taking this all too seriously? Look at Eric's comments. I'd like to know what you guys think.

  John Pavlick
  http://www.idseng.com

    -----Original Message-----
  From: discussion-request at nsrca.org [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org]On Behalf Of ronlock at comcast.net
  Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 3:42 PM
  To: discussion at nsrca.org; discussion at nsrca.org
  Cc: Ron Van Putte
  Subject: Re: Snap or not K Factor



    Here we are in yet another of the long strings about 
    observing and judging snaps.  They come around about 
    as often as seasons.

    It's pretty clear that as a community we don't yet agree on the 
    exact criteria for snaps;  or have the observation skills to 
    interpret the airplane behaviour; (which is extremely difficult to 
    do in the fractional second the maneuver takes) or the proficiency 
    to match the observed behaviour to the correct downgrades.
    Most of us can add to this list of issues.

    Yet, those imperfect judgments for high K-Factor snaps 
    continue to have a high impact on round scores.

    How about reducing the K-Factor for snap maneuvers in
    AMA schedules?   We still fly them, we still judge them, 
    we still invest as much of our resources as we want 
    into improving flying and judging snaps.

    And.....when we get it right, <VBG> we can put the 
    high K-Factors back in place.

    Ron Lockhart

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