4-leaf Clover - a Judge's perspective

You can quibble about 38 degrees, or 41 degrees or an arc or straight line, but from my perspective of judging (did Expert at the Knight's Joust yesterday), the 4 leaf is flown really, really badly by most people, even at top level. Without sweating the minor stuff, I am talking about one very frequent, major boo-boo.

This major flaw is that they do the first loop, and then put the vertical climb through the center of it! It isn't just missing the correct climb position by a bit, they consistently nail the center of that first loop as if they were trying to. At first, I thought I might be imagining it, but I have seen the same thing at contest after contest.

After giving some thought of why this is, I suspect that they are remembering where they started the maneuver (bottom of the first loop), and unconciously then make that their intersection point.

The correct path is to put your bottom, outside loop far to the left of the first loop, so your vertical climb just nicks the left quadrant point of the first loop. That straight leg should be exactly a FULL loop diameter. That is just under 45 degrees of the circle.

What I try to do, is pick a landmark for my vertical (precisely downwind, of course) and plan the first loop to have its left quadrant point right on that line. This requires that I anticipate and start that loop about 22 degrees before the landmark. Then, keeping that landmark in mind, getting the other loops in position becomes much easier.

So, go practice, and sin no more!

ya nailed it Larry. Putting the 4 loops around an intersection marks an expert flyer, but even then the int may drift a bit.

Hi Larry,
Without going through all the gory details of the last thread on the clover problems, you are dead right about the the way it is generall flown. I always love to blame something else (other than my own flying!), so in this case I put some of the blame on the rules. The first horizontal joining line should be the length of the diameter of the first loop. This will always be smaller than the 45 degree arc that you mention, but even if it is 45 degrees, then this will bring the model up vertical into the first loop. Entering the clover on a 38 degree horizontal line path, will set the size of the lower loops to be the same, and then the upper loops have to be bigger to fit the rules criteria. I've drawn the first two loops for you to see the problem, and I've duplicated the first loop and placed it so that you can see the distance to be flown.

This is why I am so keen to get the rules fixed. This will stop all the many different concepts of just how the maneuvers should be flown. The rules should tell us. Enjoy the pic.

If I am reading your drawing right, the horizontal leg needs to be something like 72 degrees of arc. Wow, you just can't visualize that in your head.

However, the error I have been seeing is worse than what you show. People are EXACTLY nailing their starting point and the center of the first loop with the vertical leg.

Larry, Keith R, Phil...

There's an old way to try to build the image into our minds, one that should help fix this unfortunate habit...

Find 4 coins of some size -- up here, say quarters: Keith, don't know what your currency provides <g>.

Place them tangent, the way the loops of the clover should be flown. This IS legit, as the flier should see four equal size loops as he flies it. His eye is close to the center of the cones carved by the lines and model, and the circles at the end of the lines are flat.

Tracing this sequence... in your mind, with a pencil or fingertip, whatever... should help you 'space' the four loops. Flying them, once this image is ingrained, then needs to be fitted so that the upper loops just touch tangent to a wingover track at 90º from the center intersection's radius.

Keith R and Igor... I think a great circle left to right path is correct, but won't look correct to very many judges... Great thinking, though!

Larry,
If you just fly the horizontal leg as a great circle path, then the distance is spot on the diameter of the loops, and all the loops are the same size as well. Lou is right though, it looks "different" and at this stage of the game will most likely lose you some score.

Brett Buck was spot on when he said that you can perform a perfect clover directly overhead, and then shift it down. You get a bit of a stiff neck this way, but it gives you the correct way of flying the clover. When I battled to do good overhead eights, I found that it was easy to practice normal horizontal eights, and then shift them up higher each time, until they were directly overhead.

Anyway, I hope that we can soon sort the rules out a bit better. Wild Bill calls this my "holy grail" of stunt.

You guys are all missing my point. I am not talking about a quibble of straight, horizontal vs great circle, or loops being unequal. I am not talking about missing the intersection by few feet due to an error of accurate flying. I am not talking about whether the rules are correctly written.

I am talking about a huge, gross, monsterous, disasterous, immense, mammoth, gigantic, collosal, enormous, titanic, whopping, basic mistake. Namely flying straight up through the center of the first loop. VERY accurately! Not an error of a few feet, but precisely through the point where they started the maneuver.

It seems that they do not anticipate the first quarter of the first loop having width, and only remember where they started. They focus on that point as the correct intersection location and then nail that point remarkably well.

I know how to fly the maneuver correctly (within my ability to fly accurately), I am just trying to let people know that they may not realize what they are doing. As a judge, you can't go coach the flyers in the middle of a contest. This forum is the place to bring it up.

>You guys are all missing my point.
>
>I am talking about a huge, gross, monsterous, disasterous,
>immense, mammoth, gigantic, collosal, enormous, titanic,
>whopping, basic mistake. Namely flying straight up through
>the center of the first loop. VERY accurately! Not an
>error of a few feet, but precisely through the point where
>they started the maneuver.
>

Liberal snipping took place. Now for some sniping:

Larry, will you please tell us how you *really* feel about this?

Actually, I should keep my mouth shut and fly the maneuver correctly myself and let my competitors screw up all they want. Judges can easily see the difference.

you gotta watch how the judges score it. If everybody else is doing it wrong they may decide you are wrong and downgrade your score, since yours is not like everyone elses.

As Keith R. points out, when the maneuver description is not correct, the judges can do whatever they want regarding interpretation.

Heck, sometimes I think judging is harder than flying. Maybe the best judges should get the trophies????

>you gotta watch how the judges score it. If everybody else
>is doing it wrong they may decide you are wrong and
>downgrade your score, since yours is not like everyone
>elses.
>
Not the judges I fly in front of!

>As Keith R. points out, when the maneuver description is not
>correct, the judges can do whatever they want regarding
>interpretation.
>
Interesting comment. I find that judges do a great job and they do follow the rules for judging, not whatever they want.

>Heck, sometimes I think judging is harder than flying.
>Maybe the best judges should get the trophies????

Judges should get more recognition for they hard work they do.

The lack of clarity or accuracy in the rules is minor compared to the error I am discussing. It is very clear from the description and drawing that the 4 loops should just touch, never overlap. That certainly leaves nothing up to the judge's interpretation.

>you gotta watch how the judges score it. If everybody else is doing it wrong they may decide you are wrong and downgrade your score, since yours is not like everyone elses.

>Heck, sometimes I think judging is harder than flying. Maybe the best judges should get the trophies????

>Phil C

Minor snip...

Phil,

While your comment is as always appreciated, especially as you have been good enough to actually do some judging, your comment must either be tongue in cheek or you don't know our NW judges very well.

There are several maneuvers where (nearly) everybody does them incorrectly, and not by just a small amount. It is these maneuvers upon which I have been placing the most emphasis. I can assure you they know perfectly well how each is supposed to be flown.

Judging takes a different skill set than flying, but there is no doubt that judging is a quite difficult task, all the more appreciated when one comes up against really good judges, often the case in the NW.

The judges can have *all* of my trophies, even the old ones from Combat. They appear to prefer, however, marinated Walla Walla Sweet onion rings...