[NSRCA-discussion] Happy New Year

[george w. kennie]

To all you guys who monitor this list, I not only want to wish you all a wonderful New Year, but I wish to convey to each how this terrific interaction that we enjoy on this medium has made my life far more interesting and fulfilled and rewarding because of your participation in the process. We may not all share the same viewpoints, but the exposure to various understandings is always enlightening and of value.

This may not be your experience and I can respect that, so you may not be interested in what follows and that's O.K., but I kinda made a promise to Tom Miller at last years Nats that I would attempt to address a couple of issues that came up during a somewhat passionate discussion that took place in the Gazebo on Sunday evening regarding a couple of rules interpretations. Please understand that the viewpoints expressed here by me are purely my opinions and the reasoning behind those conclusions and any corrections to my erroneous offerings will be welcomed. 

The first point that was put forth by my worthy adversary was in regard to Hesitation Rolls. In his understanding, he submitted that a point in a point roll included the hesitation and therefore the first maneuver in P-09, the Double Immelman with 2 of 4 points first, must be flown with a space after the second point in order to fulfill the requirement of his interpretation of the maneuver.

This is in total opposition to what the rulebook states. I'm here to tell you that the POINT and the HESITATION are TWO separate and distinct entities. How do I know that? Think about it for a second. What do you do in a verticle up-line with 2 of 4? Do you include the hesitation portion of the roll in the line? If you did and you treated this as ONE element and you centered that element in the line, then the roll portion would occur significantly off center toward the bottom of the line !  
This is further supported by the rulebook in  5B.4.3.7. where it states, "the half roll, snap roll, POINT ROLL, or full roll should be performed IMMEDIATELY after or before the half loop as required by the particular maneuver. A VISIBLE LINE IN BETWEEN THE TWO COMPONENTS MUST DOWNGRADE THE MANEUVER BY 2 POINTS. This action can only occur if the POINT  and the HESITATION are treated as two separate and distinct elements.

This error in thinking extended to his proposal that the center of a 4 point roll was NOT the center of the inverted portion of the roll, but the beginning of the third point. If you are tempted to agree with this proposal I would recommend that  you draw out the maneuver displaying all of the individual elements inclucing the entry and exit lines, assigning similar inch values to each element and you will quickly see that the center is indeed the center of the inverted portion of the roll.

All this stuff came from a guy who was a former World Champion and was agreed to by another top 5 calibre individual who was in attendance at this small gathering and when I attempted to offer a different viewpoint I came under a vehement verbal attack.What I had further difficulty with was the fact that he was able to convince the head of the judging committee that he was right and the ruling went in his favor to the degree that it was announced at the pilot's meeting that the maneuver would be flown with the hesitation before the commencement of the loop. On the first day of competition he himself flew the maneuver WITHOUT the hesitation. I couldn't help wondering to myself if he did it all in an effort to sabotage the competition. My other conclusion has to be, " just because you possess fabulous flying skills (and this guy really IS fabulous, I thought he won the last round of F ) doesn't mean you can read English and understand what is being inferred."   As you can tell, I'm sure, .....I'm doing a little venting here. I'm too easily frustrated.  

O.K. ...........next item.  Half Clover !   A couple of years before this, the same individual raised some questions regarding the clover execution. I had been doing this maneuver incorrectly in my practice sessions and his questions, were valuable to me because they really made me think !  When I expressed my opinions regarding proper execution of this maneuver to ANOTHER top flyer I was informed that my basis was faulty. In subsequent thinking sessions I haven't been able to reverse my conclusions. My contention is that this is indeed a HALF clover. Why would it be otherwise? Some individuals in the judging fraternity tell me " You're getting too caught up in the NAME of the maneuver."  Well why did they give it that name if that's not what it is.  
O.K., It   IS  one half of a clover.  Therefore the correct way to perform the figure is to visualize a FULL clover in your mind and then perform the top two loops relative to those proportions ( if it's upright ). If there's a roll on the upline, then the point of the roll should occur at a point correspondent with altitudinal point of intersection between the upper and imaginary lower loops. Now what I had been doing wrong was to do two loops at the top of a long vertical up-line that were sized way too small for what a full clover should have looked like, had one been built on my baseline, and the loops were significantly above the rollpoint. Make 'em bigger guys and bottom out on the center of the roll and it will score big. 

Next: Maneuver end points.  Refer to your Aresti drawings and look for that vertical bar that indicates the correct end-point of questionable maneuvers. A couple of years ago there was a Reverse Cuban from the top that could not be completed before center far enough to allow an exit line to be inserted before the initiation of the subsequent maneuver. Quique asked in the judging class if he could start the next maneuver before center because it had it's own problems. After class I checked the Aresti and informed him of the problem created by the sequence originator not allowing for the correct ending point of the Cuban. He was grateful for the explanation and I was too as I had not contemplated the discrepancy before either. All sequence originators need to be mindful of all maneuver endpoints when trying to achieve a free -flowing schedule.

You wont find this one in the book, but it's a pet peeve of mine and there are a lot of people that feel otherwise.  SLOW ROLL  vs.  ROLL !     There are multiple descriptors explaining the correct execution of rolls whether they be normal speed rolls or slow rolls.  Maneuvers requiring slow rolls distinctly specify that the roll being called for needs to exceed a 3 second duration.  THIS IS A VERY SPECIFIC REQUEST !   In the absense of this request it is my opinion that a normal speed roll is to be executed and should be required.  A while back we had a Triangle with a roll across the top. It did not say "ALL ACROSS" the top nor did it say "at the pilot's discretion."  It could be deduced, by the judge, that if you do a slow roll across the top that you don't want him to see your inability to properly center the normal speed roll and this is your way of snow-balling him.     Like I say,  NOT IN THE BOOK, but I read English !   Sorry.

One more:  Turn Around altitude change.  Jim Woodward will tell you what a stickler I am for  BASELINE, BASELINE, BASELINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!   You hear everyone stating the fact that it's O.K. to enter a T.A. maneuver at one altitude and exit at another without penalty.  Well I don't know how or when this one got so discombobulated.
Originally the intent of this rule was to accommodate an execution infraction and was assigned a penalty to be assessed to either the current maneuver or the subsequent maneuver.  For some reason guys started reading this rule to mean "it's O.K. to change altitude on T.A. maneuvers without reading the penalty part and with subsequent re-prints of the rule book that part was dropped. I hate when that happens !!!!!!!!!!!! 

Despite the sound of all this, I really AM having an O.K. day and offer it up for your perusal.  Just don't over-react please.

Remember, I love you guys.

Georgie 
  

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