[NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
Jerry Stebbins
JAStebbins at worldnet.att.net
Mon Feb 4 07:04:24 AKST 2008
After reading a bunch of the posts I have a couple questions.
1. Since Masters is the destination class for all of AMA Pattern, how can it be "TOO difficult"??, that is what it should be!!
I can understand problems with "kinds of maneuvers" like "rollers", too many/multiple "snaps",etc. as in FAI, that make the plane designs need to be more maneuver specific. Those aspects are controllable by specific constraints written into the Sequence Process Development Documentation.
2. I recognize there are pilots that do not have the resources (time/money/mentors), or the inclination to spend the time it takes to "Master Masters". That is an individual circumstance that each of us has to handle. How does making the sequences easier so more pilots can get higher scores with less effort become a viable solution, instead of defeating the "best of the best" status of the Masters class.
If the AMA Membership flying Pattern (mostly NSRCA) wants to provide a class to accommodate those circumstances, then what will be the litmus test of "having enough of X<Y<Z<" to force them into the Masters class, or qualify for the pre-Masters class. Try to put that into an equation that all would deem "fair and equitable". I would suggest if that is what it takes to eliminate the yearly trek back through all this discussion-with no substantive changes- let a body of those concerned come up with an analysis/study/evaluation/findings/recommendations/rules by which it can be discussed and voted upon.
Asbestos jacket on
Jerry
----- Original Message -----
From: vicenterc at comcast.net
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2008 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
In conclusion, as Joe said, we need to make sure that we do something to "limit the creep in sequence difficulty that has been occurring in the Masters class". For sure this will make easier for Advanced pilots to move up to Masters. If some of the Masters pilots want more level we need to add another class or they need to go and fly FAI-F3A.
--
Vicente "Vince" Bortone
-------------- Original message --------------
From: Bob Kane <getterflash at yahoo.com>
My sentiments are in line with Joe's . . . . . .
Bob Kane
getterflash at yahoo.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Joe Lachowski <jlachow at hotmail.com>
To: NSRCA Mailing List <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 3, 2008 1:20:19 PM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
We've voted on this several times already in the past and the answer is always NO.
You will lose half the Masters pilots. Guarantee I'll be gone. We need to limit the creep in sequence difficulty that has been occuring. I don't know about you guys, but I don't like having the international community dictating to us what we fly here in the US. You want to fly FAI sequences, go fly FAI and take your lumps. You know we have beaten this subject to death a number of times already. I'm tired of it already.
As far as the so called professional pilots willing to participate in local contests, as a CD, if they don't support the local level contests, you just eliminate the class an save some money. That should send a clear signal. I really don't think making changes for getting more of the so called professionals involved will amount to anything. The vast majority of top pilots do participate in local events. Th! ere are very few who chose not to. I think I can count them on one hand. Heck, maybe a couple of fingers.<g>
Why is there such a huge Masters class? Most Masters pilots either don't have the skill or time to master rolling circles and integrated rollers in a sequence to move up to FAI. Face it, we like to consider ourselves perfectionists at what we do. Who wants to go to a contest and hack through a manuever that could potentially be a crash experience. Masters is a great success as it is. Leave it alone.
There was mention of sequence length. We can adjust Masters if we wanted to to shorten the sequence. By the way the current sequence is a little long, but the 09' sequence is definitely shorter in time length.
From: GAA at owt.com
To: nsrca-discussion at lists.f3a.us
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 08:43:58 -0800
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
I disagree with Master flying the FAI P schedule. I think we should let the membership vote on this issue and implement what the majority want.
--Gordon
From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.f3a.us [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.f3a.us] On Behalf Of vicenterc at comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2008 8:18 AM
To: johnfuqua at embarqmail.com; NSRCA Mailing List; 'NSRCA Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
I think the idea is that the destination class (if we changed to FAI-F3A) will fly the F-Schedule also. I see very strong advantages from judging point of view. Both classes Masters and FAI-F3A will know the P schedule really well since both are flying the same maneuvers. I expect that the judging level is going to be improved. Yes, the Masters pilots will need to learn the F-Schedule. Finally, I think more professional pilots will be willing to participate in local contests because we will have more competition at the FAI-F3A level. I think if we do this could be fun that is the general agreement.
Regards,
--
Vicente "Vince" Bortone
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "John Fuqua" <johnfuqua at embarqmail.com>
I have been following this discussion with some relutance to jump in. As a current Masters pilot and old time F3A flyer I to once pushed to have the Master schedule be the P schedule. But you guys need to look at what FAI has done to the P schedule. Here is link to the F3A rules. http://www.fai.org/aeromodelling/documents/sc4
FAI has reduced the total maneuvers to 19 including a non scored takeoff and landing. AMA Master is 23 including a scored takeoff and landing.
Going to FAI would certainly speed things up (which is what FAI intended for large contests like WC to speed up the prelims and get to the real contest).
Not sure this is what AMA/NSRCA membership wants for a destination class.
John
From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Del Rykert
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2008 7:14 AM
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] changed topic to killing Masters?
Hi Dave..
I never saw anyone suggesting to do away with the Masters class.. I have thought of another restriction/factor. Some of the FAI maneuvers require a specific designed plane to do them well. If you don't have such an aircraft in your stable you can be looking at a prohibitive change to switch to those type of planes or live with the self imposed handicap. Granted, some of the best can make a good showing in FAI type maneuvers but when needing the 1 point advantage in a high K-Factor maneuver it does drive the contestants to seek the best sled that works for them.
A good friend pointed out something I had lost sight of once. He acquired a newer designed airplane to his stable that performed the maneuvers he was flying so much easier. The design choice alone was raising his scores by almost 1 point per maneuver. With only a little bit of practice with new plane. He never appreciated the handicap he self imposed until having better equipment. Heck.. I still have coreless servos and not a digital do I own.. How far behind am I? LOL.
Del
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Burton
To: 'NSRCA Mailing List'
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
Del, Ive never advocated doing away with the Masters class. I only suggested adopting the most current FAI P maneuver schedule and fly Masters as a separate class as we do today. Masters pilots would not be required to advance to the FAI class unless they chose to do so. Seems to me like it solves several problems. It allows a CD to have more flexibility in arranging flight lines, a larger pool of knowledgeable judges, eliminates the need for NSRCA (or others) to come up with a new schedule periodically for the Masters Class. I dont think there is any difference in the difficulty level of the P schedule and the Masters schedule today and would not require any greater skill level than Masters does today IMO.
Dave Burton
From: Del Rykert [mailto:drykert2 at rochester.rr.com]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 7:09 PM
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
Hi Dave
I'm not trying to imply that I have the correct answer to that question. Not all people that advance through the AMA classes have the desire or deep pockets to handle being competitive at the FAI level. Some Master fliers in the past have told me the time commitment is high to be competitive in FAI class. Higher than they can accept. That may be the biggest reason. Not certain. But they do enjoy the difficulty and challenge of flying masters and if told they had to move to FAI or if pointed out and made to move up to FAI some would choose to leave. I see it as part of the dues some are willing to commit to play. Some drop out after making it to intermediate. Others after reaching advanced. Some have stayed and still fly those classes but r! eal! iz e the y don't have the time, desire, money, to move up and be challenging or at least make a decent showing they can accept for themselves. I believe the competitive factor varies with us all and what we are willing to commit to fly pattern.
I'm even suspect their are other issues that escape us and why they are happy to fly Masters.
Del
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Burton
To: 'NSRCA Mailing List'
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
Del, whats the difference between FAI type schedules and Masters schedules? You are correct about previous proposals not being accepted. I have submitted a rules change twice for Masters to fly the P schedule and it was defeated both times. Wont do that again, but I never understood the opposition to it.
From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Del Rykert
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 3:24 PM
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
So it would be acceptable to you to drive some away from pattern as it has been clearly stated that some Master fliers by choice do not want to fly FAI type schedules. It has been voted on with surveys and discussed on this list in the past to not use that approach.
Del
----- Original Message -----
From: vicenterc at comcast.net
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
I believe that FAI rules states that it is required more than 2 days event to fly F schedule. I am sure that someone out there is going to be able to find if I am correct or not. Of course, we can use the AMA rules and the CD can override this if he announces the change with time.
I agree that in Masters we should fly the current P schedule. This will make a natural transition when moving Masters to F3A. The rules should be changed to make the F3A class the final destination of AMA classes. In other worlds, Masters should not be the final destination as it is now.
--
Vicente "Vince" Bortone
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Tony" <tony at radiosouthrc.com>
Those are the very reasons that I stopped flying FAI. The FAI rules state that the F patterns are for Regional, National and International events, and are not designed to be flown at a local contest.
Tony Stillman, President
Radio South, Inc.
139 Altama Connector, Box 322
Brunswick, GA 31525
1-800-962-7802
www.radiosouthrc.com
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From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Romano
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 8:36 AM
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] F at locals?
Another good point Jason. The more that the F is flown and judged the better we all get at it. I can fly Masters or the P with equal mediocrity but the F always just scared me off. Maybe one of my goals for this year will be to learn it. Now if everyone promises no laughing I might try it.
From comments I have hear a lot of guys just don't want to deal with rollers.
Anthony
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From: jshulman at cfl.rr.com
To: nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:08:38 -0500
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Judging by committee?
Problem with that is that we're finding that enough FAI guys don't want to fly F... so why hold 2 FAI- P classes? I understand getting to know 1 sequence is easier to judge, but the Masters and FAI guys should be able to have a handle on the other class without much work. Its probably just me, but if FAI were to fly both P and F, then having "Masters" fly P might be a more Masters class this way. Then again, I may be off in left field, or is this right? And since now both the Team Trials and Worlds pick the winning teams at the end of the contest (after F) it would make more sense to start flying F locally so it's not a shock come Nats time.
Regards,
Jason
www.jasonshulman.com
www.shulmanaviation.com
www.composite-arf.com
-----Original Message-----
From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org]On Behalf Of Dave Burton
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 6:53 PM
To: 'NSRCA Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Judging by committee?
There is a way to solve the peer judging and several other problems with changing maneuver schedules for Masters class.
Let Masters class fly the most current FAI P schedule as a separate class. This provides a way that FAI class can judge Masters and be completely familiar with the maneuvers and Masters class can judge FAI and be completely familiar with the schedule. Then the rules committee does not have to come up with a new schedule periodically as it changes every other year just like FAI. The schedules (P & Masters) are so close in difficulty that flying the P schedule should not be any problem for masters class flyers.
OK, Flame suit on!
From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Mark Atwood
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:56 PM
To: NSRCA Mailing List
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Judgeing by commitee?
For our matrix version, the A& B masters groups, we effectively ran 2 contests. The scorer set up a second masters only contest for the B panel to enter their scores. It worked quite well with only a little confusion.
It did a great job of picking the top 5 guys and getting them into the top 8. Im pretty sure you could argue that 7-12th place might have had some variance...but I think thats true regardless of the format.
-Mark
On 1/31/08 3:49 PM, "Anthony Romano" <anthonyr105 at hotmail.com> wrote:
I suspected this would require super- human objectivity as well as be a logistical nightmare. However, everyone reall knows the sequence. Really like the matrix system but not sure how much work that makes for the scorer. Anyone have any thoughts on how to score that
One idea that was kicked around in D1 was fly an extra round in Masters to generate an extra throw away. Each round two masters pilots judge and don't fly rotating through the entire class. It seems like the time required would work out the same because the group had two less pilots but again lot of objectivity ( conscious and unconscious ) required especially as the contest end grew near.
Anthony
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Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:14:15 -0500
From: atwoodm at paragon-inc.com
To: nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org; nsrca-discussion at lists.f3a.us
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Judgeing by commitee?
Anthony,
I have to agree with Jim, but for different reasons. We did this about 4 years back at our district championships with the masters class. We had 17 pilots in masters, and only one (me) in FAI, and another 6 or 7 in advanced. So getting any judging at all would have required heavily using the Intermediate and Sportsman classes to judge, OR, heavily burdening the few Advanced guys...and sitting through 17 masters flights is a looooong sentence.
So we did the peer judging scenario. Given the options, it worked very well. But it requires some serious juggling to even try and make it work well. We ! used p! e e! r judgi ng for 4 of the 6 rounds. Two flight lines, with a rolling panel of judges. 5 judges on each line, tossed high and low by maneuver leaving 7 pilots not judging at any given time. This allowed the person before and after each flight some time to prep and decompress before having to jump in the chair for 5 flights and then start over on the second line.
Its a VERY VERY VERY busy process, not to mention that unless you completely randomly resort the flight line each round, the pilot will be judged but the same group...or maybe more importantly NOT judged by the same group each round.
It worked...but it was messy. I would only do it again if we were presented with the same grossly offset numbers of entries.
On a related note... A better solution was tried a few years later when we had similar numbers (16 masters pilots)
We created 2 classes of masters...A and B. we still used FAI and Advanced j! u! dges,! but we were also able to sprinkle in B judges for A and vice versa. We did 4 rounds for each group. Took the top 4 from each group and combined them and they flew the last 2 rounds as a Finalists group (with the other 8 judging and flying in their own group for the bottom 8 spots.)
This was MUCH more workable, and I think netted a fairer event in the long run.
-Mark
On 1/31/08 2:46 PM, "Woodward, Jim" <jim.woodward at baesystems.com> wrote:
Hey Anthony,
**** Attempting a 50 words or less approach without too much regard for political correctness *****
I dont think peer judging works. I dont think it sends the right message about problem solving or achieving a more accurate score per maneuver for each pilot. Psychology 101 would predict that it does not foster the right mindset or circumstances for a competitive environment (Reality TV shows like Survivor are based on one form or another of peer judging).
The #1 component that must be correct for it to work is that all pilot/judges see and subtract about the exact same number of points per maneuver see the same downgrades. The situation doesnt compute if one judge is off from the others or uses impression judging. A bunch of stuff should probably be in place for this to! work l ike: ! ! large n umber of judges, drop high score, drop low score, etc. The highest caliber of honor, integrity, and judge-education is required by all competitors to make this work.
I witnessed this as a Masters pilot watching the FAI contest. I watched the flying and this scenario VERY close. My opinion is that I would chose not to compete in FAI in a peer judging scenario.
Thanks,
Jim W.
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From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.f3a.us [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.f3a.us] On Behalf Of Anthony Romano
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:44 PM
To: nsrca-discussion at lists.f3a.us
Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Judgeing by commitee?
Finally got a chance to read the current K-factor and saw a note on the Tangerine contest. The article mentioned FAI was judged by a commity of the FAI pilots. Could someone please provide details. Do you think you could keep your objectivity? ! For tho se that were there how did it work out? Sound interesting because you would finally be judged by pilots wh! o know the FAI rules and the sequence.
Could this be a solution for the overs! ized Ma sters class? Obvious drawbacks too, but trying to inspire some thought.
Anthony
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