2024 F2B World Championships: Be Part of History

[Mark Weiss]

This August, following our National Championships, we are hosting the F2 World Championships. In addition to those who qualified for their country's teams, and a host of judges for all four events, the WC takes a lot of volunteers in key roles. This is certainly true in F2B, Precision Aerobatics. Right now, our volunteer team is comprised of:

Mark Weiss: Event Director
Paul Walker: Ass't Event Director
Jim Hoffman: Circle Marshall
John Paris: Circle Marshall
Bruce Jennings: Pull Test Supervisor
Darrell Harvin: Pull Test Supervisor
Steve Smith: Score Sheet Runner
Mark Hughes: Score Sheet Runner
Mark Overmier: Judge, F2B

We need two more volunteers to be our Tabulators, the folks who will be taking the judges score sheets after each flight, and entering each contestants scores into our MATS computer scoring system. Paul and I will help our two Tabulators and our WC CD, Bill Lee, will be holding training sessions on the use of the MATS system for us.

All of our volunteers will receive a per diem expense allowance to help with the cost of food and lodging in Muncie.

We are ramping up right now to get these last two positions filled so we can begin the training program. PLEASE HELP TEAM USA BY VOLUNTEERING TO TAKE THESE LAST TWO POSITIONS. PLEASE!

If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please send me an email or call me.
Mark Weiss' email: ama82824@yahoo.com                  Mobile phone: (302)547-4917

Thank you all!

Be part of history....be part of the action!

[Istvan Travnik]

Dear Mark,
If you think on to put onto paperless ( wireless, digital ) base all your scoring system of F2B World Championship, I am ready to connect you with several European organizers. I am sure, they are ready to inform/help you.
Biggest European contests are organized on paperless base in recent years. 
Istvan

[Howard Rush]

The reliability of the paperless system used at the 2022 world championships was inadequate for use at a contest.

[BillLee]

The reliability of the paperless system used at the 2022 world championships was inadequate for use at a contest.

Yes, the reason that we will be using the traditional "write it on paper" method! Always be able to go back and track down any errors. Even print the score sheets on a laser printer so some chance moisture won't affect them.

[Paul Smith]

Writing fifteen numbers on a piece of paper within a seven minute time period is not a job that can be improved with a computer.

The hard copy audit trail is priceless and irreplaceable.

[Trostle]

Writing fifteen numbers on a piece of paper within a seven minute time period is not a job that can be improved with a computer.

The hard copy audit trail is priceless and irreplaceable.

Actually, the determination of fifteen numbers must be made in a combined time period of about 1 minute and 15 seconds (or about 75 seconds).  Could be slightly more or less depending on how quickly an individual judge can make up his mind to determine a score, write down a number, then look up to find where the model is so he can observe the next maneuver.

Keith

[Paul Smith]

As an industrial engineer, I always use the total time the worker is on the clock, with the understanding that there is some idleness during the work day. 

If an electronic system was to be purchased, it might add a small amount of idle time to the work day.

[Brett Buck]

Writing fifteen numbers on a piece of paper within a seven minute time period is not a job that can be improved with a computer.

The hard copy audit trail is priceless and irreplaceable.

   I have no knowledge of how the system works in practice, but from another source using a similar system, part of the supposed "advantage" is that the judges individual scores are displayed in real-time, and in some cases, right on a display behind the judges. The idea I heard for this was to make sure the judge's score was immediately visible for all to see, supposedly then subject to peer pressure to "avoid cheating".

   I also note that for this to have any real positive effect, the crowd has to see something that the CD, etc, do not. Because the CDs definitely look for "discrepancies" and adjust things to avoid conflicts that put the judges in bad situations or the pilots in unfair conditions.

   Maybe that works in some cases, but a big part of the current system was  intended to do just the opposite, to protect the judges from endless harassment generated by the pilot's supporters and cheerleading sections. We have 40+ years of examples of how that works out. Most people don't care and would cause no problem. But if even one person to takes the scores for "analysis" and then launches a jihad (or in the case if stunt, multiple jihads), we end up with everything from arguments to death threats.

      If anyone thinks it couldn't happen, it in fact did happen -  after we published, ex post facto, the scores from just one contest. Scores that changed one person from third place to fourth place by a point or two from one day to the next.

   I think that possibility of misuse  greatly outweighs the risk of judge malfeasance or getting the wrong answer. Someone getting an underserved placing is a minor problem that will average out over time. Allow the judges to  be subject to attacks from poor sports and their supporters, and you don't have an event any more.

      Brett

[Paul Smith]

Thank you.

I assumed that this just involved an electronic note pad, not a Jumbotron. 
Seeing the ongoing score with Factor K computed on a big screen would make it more interesting to watch.

With that technology in hand, the flyer's score compared to the leader would be simple added app.

This is similar to the modernized way of reporting golf scores as devised by Chip Harbert of Meadowbrook CC in 1958.

[Howard Rush]

Since Mark's original post, we have discussed:

1. Electronic score input by judges

2. Electronic score display

3. Public display of individual judges' scores

I, an opinionated person, have opinions on all three.

1. Yes, having scores appear as soon as they are issued looks really cool, but speed is not worth sacrificing accuracy for.  It is possible to make a remote entry device that stores scores and confirms to the scorer that it has done so, but the devices used in the 2022 world champs were unreliable and had no reversionary score saving.  If Europeans have an adequate system, one would think that it would have been deployed at this contest.  Paper and pencil work really well.

2. Electronic score display as used at the 2022 world champs was, in fact, really cool.  Having scores go directly from the tabulation program to monitors enhances accuracy.  I would like to do this at the US Nationals.  Gimme the monitors and I'll figure out how to display the scores.  Bill Lee has a system that spews scores over the internet as soon as they are tabulated.  I am not familiar with it, but everybody says it's wonderful. 

3. The current Nats tabulation system is based on openness and objectivity.  Yes, the Nats process allows us to shuffle judges such that fathers don't judge sons and brothers don't judge brothers.  F2B doesn't enjoy this feature.  All the judges judge everybody.  The Nats process has an objective, although statistically questionable, method for downselecting judges for subsequent rounds.  This isn't applicable to F2B, although it could be used for selecting judges for future contests. 

From what I've seen, the rest of the world isn't as squeamish about showing individual judge scores as Brett is.  In every stunt contest to which I've been, each contestant sees all the judges' scores for his own flights, at least.  I think there's a benefit in showing all the scores. If a contestant gets to see that a judge is consistently low, for example, it might keep the contestant from harboring a grudge against that judge.  I think Brett is overreacting to an isolated incidence of assholicity.  Were I, Heaven forbid, a CD and somebody complained about a judging anomaly, I'd ask him to give me a statistical proof. If he can, we could use that method henceforth.

[Brett Buck]

I think Brett is overreacting to an isolated incidence of assholicity. 

   Possibly. PTSD is a real mental health issue.

      The entire idea of posting the scores as they are generated was described to me as a way to, effectively, intimidate the judges into doing the supposed right thing.  How you distinguish  the "right thing" from the "the thing that keeps someone from putting a rattlesnake in my mailbox" wasn't clearly explained.

     Without putting too fine a point on it, this may not be a problem any more (although I have seen someone advocate going after judges for "not getting the right answer" in the last 5-6 years).  But are we sure enough to let ourselves in for another round? Because last time we guessed wrong,  we had a meltdown that we have yet to recover from, and may never recover from.

  Sounds like a non-issue this time around. Paper trails are a very important thing - also intended to protect the judges and organizers from unwarranted attacks.

   Brett

[bill bischoff]

All these replies and none of them have anything to do with volunteering. 

[Istvan Travnik]

The reliability of the paperless system used at the 2022 world championships was inadequate for use at a contest.

Dear Howard, and all,
Sorrowfully I could not participate at WChs in Wloclawek, Poland , in '22.  Neither as contestant, nor as TM.
But European Championships '23 were organized at the same place (maybe by same staff), absolutely flawlessly.
So Mr. Marek Dominiak & his colleagues could repair all the problems.
World Cup contests in Hradec Králové, in Humené, in Wierzawice were organized on paperless base, too.
I do not want to make some biassed propaganda, just suggested to think on...
Istvan

[BillLee]

All these replies and none of them have anything to do with volunteering. 

++1

[Istvan Travnik]

++1

Except mine.
Using paperless scoring system, means 4 or 6 volunteers LESS for the fluent data processing.
 Results' displaying, etc. is a bonus; when a number of spectators watching, is a great advantage.
Istvan

[BillLee]

Except mine.
Using paperless scoring system, means 4 or 6 volunteers LESS for the fluent data processing.
 Results' displaying, etc. is a bonus; when a number of spectators watching, is a great advantage.
Istvan

We considered the electronic score entry pads as used in 2018, again in 2022 and, so you have said, in 2023 in the last Eurochamps. But when we did, the  only experience that I could get voiced back to me was the same as Howard mentioned above. This was before the Eurochamps last summer as I recall, so that experience was not available.

In discussing the pad scoring, we realized a number of things.

First, and probably most important: cost. We did not have the pads, we would have had to buy them, and we simply were and are running on a very thin edge financially already.

Second, experience.  As I mentioned, our total set of information available was from the 2018 WChamps in France, and the 2022 WChamps in Poland. And neither was encouraging to us.

Third, climbing a learning curve with a totally new system with which nobody in the United States was familiar.

Fourth, we have a complete computer system for managing the entire World Champs. All the way from accepting the Preliminary Entry information, through the processing, making draws, tabulating results, creating timely and accurate results for the world to see. And that is for ALL FOUR events, not just F2B . This system, which we call MATs (Management and Tabulation System) was first written for the 2004 WChamps where it was successfully used, then again in 2016 in Australia, and now again in 2024. MATs is built around the dictate that there is ALWAYS a paper trail! Adopting F2B scoring pads would have entailed a major interface effort to make them work with MATs, not to mention violating the requirement for a paper trail. It didn't take long to decide, particularly since the long-term benefits to us, the organizers, was just not apparent.

Bottom line, we will use paper score sheets and a pencil, we will use tabulators to enter the data. Perhaps some other organizer 20 years from now when the next F2 World Championships is run in the United States will think differently, but not in 2024.