Judging at the WC

LAST EDITED ON Jul-14-04 AT 01:03 PM (CDT)
 
Just a comment on the WC's judging.

I thought the order was simply RIGHT ON. The best fliers flying the best patterns got the best scores. Some of the scores relied heavily on luck of conditions, (as good conditions should effect your score). So overall the scores seemed to reflect nearly exactly what I saw. This seemed to be the overall feeling of the people I talked too in my circles.

The best pattern flown in the contest was Billy's. It was a little oversize (Billy said afterwards that was his plan), and man, was it accurate. Bottoms from "you know where", and I swear the airplane never wiggled once, not even in level flight. The speed was crisp but not fast. It was a powerful pattern indeed. Keep in mind the conditions were perfect for Billy and the French kid had to fly in the rain right before him,, but that is HOW IT GOES AT THE WC's. This "luck of the draw" factor has probably worked against Billy more than it had worked for him in previous WC's, so in this case he made the most of his good fortune.

Super clutch flying... cannot be said enough.

The younger Japanese guy (never knew his name) flies "American" as well as anyone I ever saw. Slow, controlled, and 45 degrees or under. The young Remi Berringer was about the same but his 4 stroke made him more "International" than the pipe weilding Japanese flier.

The Yatsenko brothers flew extremely well in all conditions. They never even so much as changed a prop during the entire contest!!! They never changed fuel either!!! They simply tweaked the needle a little (I never noticed a change in the sound at all) and put in a pattern. No fiddling with the airplane or obssessing over critical details, just simply pounding out patterns with alarming regularity.

There were no protests, no grumbling. Everyone was so pleasant and easy to talk too.

I like the FAI format a lot actually. I even like the scoring and the time limit. I do not like those weird landings though.

Did you see Gilbert Beringer's DH Comet fly and if so, what was your impression? Thanks for the great commentary.

"I don't know about this tuned pipe business. I practiced on that thing until my lips turned blue, and I still can't play a stinkin note."
"Homer J. Simpson"

>Did you see Gilbert Beringer's DH Comet fly and if so, what
>was your impression? Thanks for the great commentary.

It was AWESOME. Big balls on that guy.

The engines sounded like a bomber or something, and his shutoffs were simply astounding.

Did he have something that shut off both engines simultaneously? How was the model tanked?

I like the FAI format a lot actually. I even like the scoring and the time limit. I do not like those weird landings though.

The City Smasher

What was with the landings?

>I like the FAI format a lot actually. I even like the
>scoring and the time limit. I do not like those weird
>landings though.
>
>The City Smasher
>
>What was with the landings?

There is a rule in FAI that the engine must glided for an entire lap after the engine quits. The landings are weird... a lot of ugly whipping.

>I thought the order was simply RIGHT ON. The best fliers flying the best patterns got the
> best scores.

Brad, I have to disagrss here. While I celebrate that Bill Werwage with his typically spectacular, yet elegant patterns is the acclaimed World Champion, I disagree that Paul and Ted should have been placed so low. IMHO (!), their placing results mostly from undeserved low scores in the second of their three flights. I deliberately placed myself to watch these flights from directly upwind, and I concentrated hard to view shapes, intersections, heights, bottoms, and any bobbles that would have been visible to the judges. I believe that PW's bottoms were the best of that round, and that his corners and shapes were clean - exemplary. The crowd there reacted enthusiastically to what they saw too. I posted my observations here:

http://www.clstunt.com/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID1/9675.html#13

FWIW, Remi Berringer flew quite well, but his Gee Bee had some bad habits, some of which were more visible from the less advantageous quartering perspective. Upright, it flew outside wing low, it rolled noticeably and yawed a bit when transitioning from insides to outsides, and it over rotated on turns, as one might expect a mostly flapless design to do, if it were on the heavy side. Most of that though is not piloting skills and fortunately was not very visible from the Judges' perspective (except the pitching).

There was some wonderful flying, but I found certain highly scored flights really disappointing - and I was not HOPING to find fault. It would have been more comforting, had they measured up.

If either Paul or Ted contradict me here, I'll eat my words and retreat. Sorry for the negativism.

SK

What was the Chinese flying style like? We know what's been said in the past about them, how did their patterns look in comparison to the "American style" patterns?

>What was the Chinese flying style like? We know what's been said in the past about them, how
>did their patterns look in comparison to the "American style" patterns?

These guys all fly better than I ever will (UNDERSTATEMENT), but here's an assessment from the "peanut gallery".

Wei Zhang's patterns, were smooth and pretty accurate (intersections, symmetry, overlay). Figures were characteristically a bit large, with corner radii larger than flown here by our best flyers. Bottoms were *mostly* straight and uniform in height. In my opinion, he was generally more accurate than his higher placed countryman. I didn't time laps, but their flying gave the impression of being slower than the American team's and several others. Overall though, I didn't see the touted perfection.

It appears to me that at least some international judges still not only do not reward, but actually penalize crisp corners and perhaps even correct sizes. They seem not to like faster flights. That's the only reason I can imagine for Paul Walker's low second flight score. Although Bill Werwage's normally crisp corners and straight bottoms characteristically give the impression of effortless perfection, I felt that he too "softened" his corners slightly for the W.C. The Chinese team corners are still rounder than this though. For me, the rounder corners detract from the apparent straightness of square-figure sides, and there's nothing like the sudden, straight bottom that follows a crisp turn from vertical. IMHO.

SK

I thought most of the top 15 pilots flew better than Xhinping who took second place. Even his countryman Zhang Wei, who came in 7th, presented a better pattern. Don't get me wrong, he deserved to be in the top fifteen 100%. I think he got placed 5 positions too high. I guess the halo effect does exist.

>It appears to me that at least some international judges
>still not only do not reward, but actually penalize crisp
>corners and perhaps even correct sizes.

How is that Remi scored so well?

He flew tiny and tight corners.

>How is that Remi scored so well?
>He flew tiny and tight corners.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but they weren't really soft. I was not able to assess overall scoring consistancy, but those second-flight scores and the final 2nd-place flight score did not inspire my confidence. While he flew quite well, I don't remember his corners being quite as tight - or as clean - as PW's in the second flights, but here due to aircraft geometry differences, comparisons are difficult. The long tail (coupled with small flaps, too) affects appearances as well as actual turn quickness (pitching rate as opposed to radius). Otherwise, there are a number of other possible reasons, some of which I'd hope are not why. However, it was good to see that several visitors were turning tighter corners than I expected to see, based on past word of mouth and SSW posts. For the younger Berringer, slower speed may have been important too in the impression he made. Did you time the flights? I didn't. Some who timed a few flights remarked how the stop watch sometimes had not born out their impressions of relative lap times. So here I'm just remembering impressions of speeds. Anyway, you may be onto something; perhaps a crisper turn has become more tolerated - in the "right" package. Just a thought.

SK

Some who timed
>a few flights remarked how the stop watch sometimes had not
>born out their impressions of relative lap times. So here
>I'm just remembering impressions of speeds. Anyway, you may
>be onto something; perhaps a crisper turn has become more
>tolerated - in the "right" package. Just a thought.
>
>SK

Remi was very slow in the manuevers. I do not need a watch to know that.

Hi Brad,
I found it very interesting that the *lap times* of Mr. Werwage and Mr. Ping (have trouble with the actual spelling of his name, sorry) were almost identical. Most of the flights I timed in the second round of the finals were very close.
The *impression* of flight was somewhat different, however, to me.
From the combination of sound, a Saito Golden Knight (56?) vs. a PA 61 pipe, along with the somewhat softer pattern of the Chinese gentleman I was surprised that he was flying "as fast" as Billy. His plane just "looked slower" in flight. Maybe this illusion is something the rest of the world is more familiar with than we are yet. As to rule book patterns, there were some pretty high scores awarded to patterns that I do not think would score as well in the majority of US contests.
I felt Remi flew his last flight REAL good.

Just some of my observations and thoughts about the differences in style. Not a condemnation of the foriegn pilots, or judges.

Bill <><

"Strange orb that rules the night. Robs the colors from our sight. Red is gray and yellow white. And who's to say which is right..... and which is an illusion." Moody Blues/Knights In White Satin

Hi, Bill-

It was good to finally get to spend some time with you at W.C. I talked with a couple other guys who discovered similar things when they consulted their stop watches. I think that the Gee Bee's configuration and moments can also confuse the issue on turn radii. Impressions are perhaps more influential than we sometimes like, although I always hope for objectivity to prevail, especially where rules are explicit. But who said I get to have it my way? Ha!

SK

>>I thought the order was simply RIGHT ON. The best fliers flying the best patterns got the
>> best scores.
>
>Brad, I have to disagrss here. While I celebrate that Bill
>Werwage with his typically spectacular, yet elegant patterns
>is the acclaimed World Champion, I disagree that Paul and
>Ted should have been placed so low. IMHO (!), their placing
>results mostly from undeserved low scores in the second of
>their three flights.

I must admit I saw very little of the second round. I did however, watch every flight of the last round.

Why only Ted and Paul?

I thought the German guy flying the Igor Burger plane was extremely good. The Japanese kid would have had the best flight of the contest if not for flying 4 inside loops.

>FWIW, Remi Berringer flew quite well, but his Gee Bee had
>some bad habits, some of which were more visible from the
>less advantageous quartering perspective. Upright, it flew
>outside wing low, it rolled noticeably and yawed a bit when
>transitioning from insides to outsides, and it over rotated
>on turns, as one might expect a mostly flapless design to
>do, if it were on the heavy side. Most of that though is not
>piloting skills and fortunately was not very visible from
>the Judges' perspective (except the pitching).

No one I talked to except for...let's see... exactly two people made any comment about soft corners or big patterns. I think the idea of saying that the International fliers did not fly similar patterns to our own is severely misleading. Maybe compared to Ted and his Pond Scum Purple Plane some of the guys were a little "softer" but compared to the average Top 10 American fliers, I would say the average International flier flew as sharp or sharper patterns. The young Japanese flier, the Chzeck flier, the Japanese flier flying the 4 stroke, and Remi Berringer all flew very small and tight. These patterns were noticably smaller than say, Ted and Paul's patterns, and Billy's last round pattern.

>Why only Ted and Paul?

I didn't say "only Paul and Ted". But IMO their scores were particularly lower than what I thought they deserved. Paul's flight was to me outstanding, and I think that crowd reaction to it behind the judges seconds my opinion. Thus I singled him out. A couple (diverse) individuals stated that they thought Paul might have been "making a statement" with that flight. I wouldn't know. I did make it a point to watch from this vantage point each U.S. flight and those of flyers whose patterns have been the focus of discussion in the model media and this forum. I wanted to be able to form my own opinions - and did. 'hope that's OK.

>I think the idea of saying that the International fliers did not fly similar patterns to our own is
>severely misleading. Maybe compared to Ted and his Pond Scum Purple Plane some of the guys
>were a little "softer" but compared to the average Top 10 American fliers, I would say the
>average International flier flew as sharp or sharper patterns.

I addressed this point in an earlier post on this thread. I re-read my posts and found no such characterization of the "International Flyers." They varied. I don't know that I agree that the average ones compare that way to "top-10's" though.

>These patterns were noticably smaller than say, Ted and Paul's patterns, and Billy's last round
>pattern.

"Noticeably smaller"? I can't recall a significant size difference, except for cases previously noted, although the U.S. flyers seem to have adjusted a bit to what they felt was scored well by international judges.

The Chinese corners were large in radius, Xinping Han's being large enough to really compromise the appearance of "square" figures. The movements of Remi berringer's fuselage in corners and transitions was a topic of conversation in our area - not initiated by me, incidentally. A quick-pitching, over-rotating fuselage, makes actual radii of corners (path of c.g.) really difficult to see. Since his radii appeared at least reasonable to me, I did not try to further gauge their actual size.

SK

>>>A quick-pitching, over-rotating fuselage, makes actual radii of corners (path of c.g.) really difficult to see.<<<

It is definitely trick to tired judges. Relatively large fuselage with high pitching rate gives better imagination then real CG path is. And if you looked well, those corners in comparison to straight segments between them was really large. But experienced judge should see it well anyway, the only question is, if also after 4 days of hard work.

However there is another trick, and I wrote it here already. If the model has large AoA in corner like those almost unflapped models have, then the fuselage gets proper heading earlier and it gives more time for hand to do clean corner. Just heavy model with little flaps in 90 deg turn gets proper direction after say 80 degrees if AoA is 10 deg and so the hand has 10 degrees to release to straight segment, but light or more flapped model at 5 deg AoA has only 5 deg to release what needs ½ of that time. But on opposite side, it makes that feeling of those round bottoms, so it needs to fit pilots ability.

I give up Serge, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

OK.

I thought that the Chinese team wasn't able to get visa's? Looks like they were there or were these guys Chinese that live here in the USA?

Bill