[NSRCA-discussion] Happy New Year

Thu Jan 1 17:42:39 AKST 2009

About 7 years ago Masters was flying "6 pts of a 4 pt roll". I argued 
that the center of that maneuver was the beginning of the 4th 1/4 roll 
and not the middle of the 3rd hesitation (knife edge), because my 
thinking was at the time that the hesitation element was a part of the 
rolling element and had to  always be included. There was considerable 
debate as I am sure many of us had never thought about it that hard. 
Earl Haury was the JC chair at that time.....he researched it and 
argued (correctly) that rolls start and end with rolling elements. The 
JC had an explaination on this in the NSRCA website....I think it is 
still there

The point is that ANY rolling maneuver STARTS and ENDS with rolling 
being done. Read that again........It is easy to see how that's true 
for a continuous roll; the mental leap comes when the other 
possibilities are included. One should be able to understand and see 
that it doesn't matter if the roll is standard rate, slow, snap or 
point.

In a point roll, the hesitation duration/length doesn't matter; it 
simply must exist, (and the caveat is that they must also be identical 
if several are required). Therefore, in the proverbial 4 pt, center is 
indeed the middle of the inverted hesitation. I think this is what 
George Kennie argued and he is correct.

BTW, this doesn't only hold true for horizontal rolls......it's true 
for any position, verticals and diagonals20included. This IS the way I 
have judged since that time. Not to belabor this but to drive it home, 
the 2 of 4 pt maneuver starts the instant the model is rolling (after 
the obligatory S&L before it), hesitates, and 1/4 rolls for the 2nd 
point....and that's it. There is NO hesitation element at the end...... 
there is the 2nd obligatory S&L. The center IS the middle of the 
hesitation. If you flew in front of me and didn't do it that way, you 
got downgraded.

As far as what rate to use for standard and slow rolls, Don is correct, 
there isn't a clear definition for rate. One rule that worked well for 
me that I remember from the early 80's was that the 3 roll maneuver 
should take about 5 seconds. That sort of defines rate for me for a 
standard roll, therefore, when I am sitting in the chair, that's a 
judgement I make. It is no longer defined in the rule book as such (no 
3 rolls) but perhaps it should be.

MattK, and happy happy to all

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Ramsey <don.ramsey at suddenlink.net>
To: 'General pattern discussion' <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
Sent: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 3:13 pm
Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Happy New Year

Georgie,

Here’s my take: 

-         
I don’t want to debate the 4 point
roll.  Earl Haury explains that best
and concludes it is the center of=2
0inverted flight.  It is not a 
question in AMA as the
rulebook says the center is the center of inverted/upright flight.

-         
As for the P-09.1 maneuver, the interpretation
was published by the judging committee and posted on the website.  This 
was confirmed with Bob Skinner of
the FAI.  Nuf said.

-         
On the half clover:  you can argue that the rules say all
rolls on a line are on the middle of the line.  But…  Maybe this is 
something the judging
committee should discuss. 

-         
The definition of a maneuver always takes presidence over the name.  
The name is just the best short description
of the geometry.  All real clover
leafs I’ve seen have scalloped lines and are not exactly loops.  But 
what’s in a name.

-         
As I see it, anything that’s not in the
rulebook is at the discretion of the pilot.  Roll rate are not defined 
except in slow
rolls.  As per your definition of a
standard roll (which I notice you did not define) can it be of duration 
1/10
second, can it be 2.99 seconds or can it be 4.5 seconds?  I don’t 
remember seeing a standard
roll duration defined in the regs. 
I think its pilot’s d
iscretion.  The slow roll of course is not pilot’s
discretion and must be a minimum of 3 seconds duration but can it be 
slower than
a standard roll or are you just caught up in the name.

-         
I remember the reverse Cuban Eight.  It was preceded by a half square on
corner.  Most people flew the half
square with poor geometry causing a problem on the eight.  Wind was 
another problem but the Eight
could be done with an entry line.  Compacted
maneuvers are a problem but most can be done with proper management.

-         
Hope you don’t downgrade for a change in
altitude on TA maneuvers.

It all boils down to judges making interpretations that are not
in the regs and applying those interpretations for
downgrades.  Of course, this causes
major problems.  The judging classes
are to try to prevent this.

Don

From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org
[mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of george w.
kennie

Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 12:40 PM

To: NSRCA Mailing List

Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Happy New Year

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 guy
s 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=2
0to 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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