Judging/coaching clinic

[Scott Richlen]

Last Saturday NVCL hosted a judging/coaching clinic to prepare our members for our upcoming (September 25) StuntFest.  One of our newest members took some great pictures as did other club members so I thought I'd share them with you.

We were fortunate to have Tim Stagg from the Eastern Shore Maryland club participate and his expertise really helped us put on a great event.

Our club has quite a few Intermediate and Beginner level fliers and to operate StuntFest we needed their participation.  They often feel as though, because they don't fly at a higher level, they can't judge.  But as you know, judging is more a matter of training and practice so we decided to have a training and practice event.  To practice judging you need someone to fly the pattern for you, so that gave us the opportunity to make it a coaching event, too.  Double duty!

Pictures of the pit area, Tim and I discussing maneuver judging (including when judging each maneuver starts and stops), and Tim's demo flight.

[Scott Richlen]

After our discussion of the pattern and how it is judged, Tim put up a pattern flight while I narrated what to look for as a judge, and our clinic participants practiced scoring.

Here's Tim's beautiful P-51 and shots of his flight.

(I'll post additional discussion of the clinic and more pictures later today.)

[Ken Culbertson]

Kudo's for this.  I wish there were more at the intermediate level trained to judge.  IMHO it works out best if Intermediate level fliers judge Expert and Expert level fliers judge Intermediate/Advanced.  It accomplishes three things.  Intermediates get to really *see* properly flown patterns and have far fewer point decisions to make and far fewer prejudices (sorry, we are all obviously bias free).  It makes them better.

Secondly it frees up the judges to fly in their class. and finally it puts more experience at the level where you have to award points to "OMG that was almost perfect" to "what was that supposed to be?" in the same pattern.

That is why a clinic is so valuable.  You can't just pull someone in off of the street and say here is a rule book, read it and you are a judge tomorrow. (I think the Navy used that method).  Some of the best judges I have had the privilege to stand next to could barely fly a pattern and the best of them all, (Dorsey Brewer) could barely do a loop without crashing. 

Just my opinion - Ken

[Scott Richlen]

  Kudo's for this.  I wish there were more at the intermediate level trained to judge.  IMHO it works out best if Intermediate level fliers judge Expert and Expert level fliers judge Intermediate/Advanced.  It accomplishes three things.  Intermediates get to really *see* properly flown patterns and have far fewer point decisions to make and far fewer prejudices (sorry, we are all obviously bias free).  It makes them better.

Secondly it frees up the judges to fly in their class. and finally it puts more experience at the level where you have to award points to "OMG that was almost perfect" to "what was that supposed to be?" in the same pattern.

That is why a clinic is so valuable.  You can't just pull someone in off of the street and say here is a rule book, read it and you are a judge tomorrow. (I think the Navy used that method).  Some of the best judges I have had the privilege to stand next to could barely fly a pattern and the best of them all, (Dorsey Brewer) could barely do a loop without crashing.

Just my opinion - Ken 

Ken:  Well said!  I couldn't agree more.

In fact I will have 2 Intermediate fliers judging Expert at our contest.  Tim and I will be judging Advanced and another Expert flier will be teamed up with one of our trainees to judge Intermediate.  Our Beginners will be judged by a long-time Advanced flier teamed up with another of our trainees.

One thing that non-judges don't realize is that judging, which can be long and hot work, can also be very interesting and entertaining.