Organised by: Alan Williams GBRCAA Chief Judge
Presented by: Thomas David
Guest International judge: Nico Bleas (FRA)
After a week of sunny weather we gathered early at a gloomy, foggy Buckminster.
The flying area had been booked out all day by the Pylon Racers for a competition but Andy Ellison, the CD, had kindly agreed to make space for us for a few practise sessions.
Our first slot was at 9:30, Tom bravely attempted a flight so that he could record a Flight Coach (FC) schedule. The cloud base was seriously low and so the aircraft vanished into the fog. It was only by Tom’s excellent eyesight and peerless flying skills that disaster was averted.
Luckily Tom had captured enough data for him to give us a demonstration of how FC could help us to evaluate our Judging performance. He also explained how we can use it to see errors and deviation in the flight that we may not have noticed.
For details on the Flight Coach system and how it operates, please see the website https://www.flightcoach.org
We moved on to a discussion on general judging principles, led by Nico Bleas our guest international judge. He explained how the principles are laid out in the sporting code and how we use that to score the individual manoeuvres. Focusing mainly on consistency and fairness and emphasising that as judges we must put all consideration from our minds other than: the path of the aircraft in the sky; the geometrical accuracy of the flight; and the consistent speed throughout the manoeuvre. Nico pointed out that the geometry was more important than positioning with regard to box ends and centre. That is, a very good geometry should not be downgraded too severely for missing centre or clipping the box. Poor geometry on the other hand should not be rewarded.
This is all set out in Annex 5 of the sporting code to which we constantly referred during our discussions. One of the key messages was that just as in flying, practise is the only way to progress.
By late morning we felt ready to try putting this all in to practice out on the flight line.
Once again Andy Ellison made space for us. The plan was for Tom to fly 2 instances of the 2022 clubman schedule. The rest of us would judge the schedules for review and comparison. Unfortunately the cloud and mist had still not dispersed. The best that can be said is that the aircraft was visible “most” of the time. Tom had to compromise the shapes (and particularly the height) of the manoeuvres because of this. This was not necessarily a bad thing however, as it did allow us to question just when we have to score a “Not Observed”.
Back to the Hangar again!
During the next few hours we were able to compare our scores with each other and with the picture that FC was showing. More of this later. Eugene had brought along the Notaumatic scoring system and gave a demonstration of its use and made sure we all understood how important checking the pilot number and pressing “validate” is. A simple but sometimes forgotten step that leads to all sorts of problems. Those unfamiliar with the system had the opportunity to try hands-on practise.
After lunch we progressed to a detailed discussion of the P23 schedule, concentrating on those areas which are most likely to be hard to fly and/or difficult to judge.
By about 3:30 we were ready to have some more practical experience and made our way back to the Flight line!
Andy had asked us to turn up when we were ready and he would organise a gap in proceedings. Luckily we arrived in time to see the final of the c32 pylon race. They too fly at a constant speed - very fast.
The weather had improved so there were no longer any restrictions for Tom to worry about and he flew P23 for us all to judge.
Last time in the hangar It was now well past 4:00 but despite the long day we got stuck into reviewing our performance .
Alan Williams GBRCAA Chief Judge.
