Wierzawice World Cup F2ABC 2019

[Ruslan Kurenkov]

June 28 - June 30, 2019 World Cup stage in Poland.
I have already participated in these beautiful starts for the third time. This time there was a record number of participants - 35, from 7 countries, two times more than usual. The organizers, as always, perfectly prepared the grass field for F2B flights and the asphalt circle for F2A and F2C. It was well organized food and accommodation. All athletes, without exception, had a great mood from the presence and communication at this sport aircraft model holiday.
No signs of trouble.
There was great weather for this place, on the first day of the start there were strong gusts of wind, and on the second day it was very hot and there were not a single cloud in the clear blue sunny sky.
But all this is a great mood, smiles, excellent communication immediately ended after the results of the first round of flights were published. After the results of the second round - it was a shock. And after the results of the third round I wanted only one thing - to quickly leave this perfectly prepared place with a beautiful field, good food, a banquet and a cold beer.
Nothing so disappoints the athlete as the lack of fair sports. Lack of frustration can be only in one case - if you are not an athlete, but just come to drink beer with friends.
It is a pity, but such good competitions were completely destroyed by a very bad refereeing! The athlete from China showed his flight as well as Igor and could only fight with Igor. At least the second place on the podium was given by the judge to his athlete (athlete from his country), who couldn’t even be among the top five pilots on his flight. The judges mercilessly pushed the athlete from China to as much as 4th place, and a t-shirt was presented for this topic.
This is extremely humiliating. It's like spitting in the face!
I really do not understand why the judges so mocked all the athletes who were not from their country.
It was completely destroyed the most important thing in sports - competition.
Only the judges who gave more points to their athlete from their own country competed with each other.
All athletes from Ukraine who took part in these competitions, and these are 4 pilots, will no longer participate in competitions in Wierzawica.

Regards
Ruslan Kurenkov

[Ruslan Kurenkov]

Hello, friends !
My answer is Igor!          ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/119490068110977/ )
Before the publication I thought for a very long time to do it or not. We (F2B athletes from Ukraine who took part in the competitions, and their coaches) had a long deliberation and decided to write about everything that happened in Wierzawice. This is not an easy step and it is possible only as a last resort. Only when the situation reaches the point of absurdity, when they have crossed the line of the possible. I talked with you and Peter, with athletes from Lithuania, with other athletes. And only after talking with everyone, we came to the conclusion that you can not just sit and be silent. It is unacceptable.
I told you in the evening, after the first round, that Marek promised us (in the presence of 4 athletes) that he would provide all the F2B results in the Excel format in the morning after discussing all the problems with the judges, before the second round. In the morning, Marek gave us nothing.
Here is the letter I wrote to Dariusz :     ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Dariusz !
A few days ago, we, a team of F2B pilots from Ukraine, were talking to Marek in Wierzawice about the bad judging of F2B.
He promised to provide us with all the files in Excel, for all athletes and judges with the results. We have a program that draws judging schedules from these results. On these graphs you can see exactly which of the judges puts the higher or far below the athlete's marks. So we can determine the judge who gave very high marks to the athlete who flew very badly, and vice versa.
Can you provide us with this information?
Respectfully,
Secretary of the Federation of Aviation Model Sport of Ukraine
Ruslan Kurenkov   (team F2B)

Here is his answer: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Hi Ruslan,

 

Yes, Marek told me about this.

Unfortunately I can not sent this data, because there is a regulation GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) on all territory of European Union, very restricted, according to which we are not allowed to share detailed data in which the persons (players) is identified, without their written consent.

The penalty for providing data, begins with min. 25.000 eur, so please understand me.

I have not, free 25.000Eur 😉

We talked wit Marek about this problem ( means: judging) and for next Year will be changes. Min. one Judge will changed or more. The gol is to make judging more objective and fair play.

Marek has very good contacts in Italy, Austria, France. Another plan is Judges from: POL, UKR,  SVK or LTH.

 

I’m very sorry that I can not help You now but finally we have all one target.

 

Best regards

Darek Kuras

Aeromodel Club Wierzawice

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.

If they give me the promised information, I will provide evidence. This will make it possible to determine at least one of the 3 judges who made a serious mistake in judging.
As for flying into the wind on a heavy aircraft, the strong wind was only in the first round. The second round was with the usual wind. The third round without wind with extreme heat and very much discharged air.
Regards. Ruslan Kurenkov. F2B Ukraine.

[M Spencer]

This sounds a bit dangerous .
Legend has it , elsewhere , complaints regarding judges is as  dangerous as making jokes about adolf in Germany back aways .
I suppose its this Glasnost bit , Were All Equal Now , over there !

Whit aside , looks like a hard fought Competition . Is any of it up on you tube ? thanks for showing .

[Dan Berry]

I am chuckling at the notion of someone from overseas complaining to someone in the US about biased judging at a ukie stunt contest.

[Brett Buck]

I am chuckling at the notion of someone from overseas complaining to someone in the US about biased judging at a ukie stunt contest.

   What about the notion that the GDPR applies to judge's scores at a toy airplane contest? I wish someone had thought of that with Bob Baron...

   

     Brett

[Keith Renecle]

Hi Ruslan,
Thank you for your courage in reporting this issue of obviously poor judging. We always hear about poor judging but most times nobody will complain officially or in writing, so I thank you for that! We see this kind of thing all the time in contests, and always hope for better judging in international competitions like world cups, and more especially, the world championships, where you would hope for sure that the very best judges would be present. This sadly not the case. I have only flown in 10 world champs but in many cases the are a few judges that have scores that do not look like they even watched the flight. Some of the worst judging in my own time at these events was in the Ukraine in 1998 to the point where there were a few countries that actually put in official protests, and one of the official rounds was discarded. This ended up disadvantaging some pilots like Billy Werewage who ended up in 6th place instead of being in the top three if my old memory serves me well. Two judges were accused of looking at the score board and changing their way of scoring.

I certainly do understand that with any subjective sport judged by human judges, we will always have some unhappy contestants, but from what many of us have seen, sometimes this word "subjectivity" is used for a lack of understanding and I believe that there is no excuse at this time in our sport for not having well trained judges at international events with a good understanding of how to judge. I have been involved for many years in trying to improve the rules and make for a better understanding using 3-D graphics software and written articles which are freely available on the internet. The basic rules of spherical geometry for our model flying are not complicated when you can visualize it from graphics that allow you to change your point of view easily. Now with feedback from the amazing tracing software from Alberto Solera, judges can be trained much easier, and it allows the instructor to see from score sheets who is scoring close to the actual flights. In the USA, as far as I know, the Nats judges are rated and they end up with judging that is closer to being correct. It can obviously never be perfect, but at least this method is a good step in the right direction and should be followed by the FAI people from each country. Hmmm.......that would be great hey??

I am not sure how interested the Polish people are in providing good and fair contests in F2 events. In Poland at the 2014 world champs, the F2B circles were terrible to the point where for practice some teams were hand launching their models. Quite a few models were broken on take-off and landing. There were also at least two judges that were really hard to figure out as to why they gave their particular scores. One judge would give 9 to 9.5 for almost any maneuver good or bad. At this level things like that should not be happening. Marek was running that event also and he seemed like a nice guy but as far as being a good world champs goes, it was a disaster! That story of withholding the scores is just plain rubbish and total nonsense. No pilot would object at all, so I don't believe that for a minute. The French guys put out an analysis of the F2B score and judging for the 2000 and 2008 world champs in Landres and nobody complained. It's a great pity that they have not done the same for last year's world champs because once again, there was some questionable judging. I have heard that the 2020 world champs in Poland will have a better flying site for all classes including F2B.

From working with the F2B committee, I know that judges training is of much importance, and I continue to work with Peter Germann to improve things. The rules have been steadily improved and even as good as they are, there are still many judges who simply ignore what is in the rule book. They say that old habits die hard, and this is often the case with stunt judging and each judges particular belief system. Soooooo..... until we have a computer tracking system that can also judge without bias, we are stuck with human judges for now. I think that for the near future, computer assisted judging that still involves a few humans will make some good changes, well.......at least I sure hope so!

Keith R

[Ruslan Kurenkov]

Hello Keith !
I am very grateful to you for your comment.
I reread it several times as a very well written and interesting book.
So much different information in just one message.
Thank you for supporting me with a kind word. This is really very important for me and my friends pilots from Ukraine who, like you, support me and believe that publicity and truth now is the right way to ensure quality qualified refereeing in the future. I also think, we believe that the most important condition for ensuring qualified starts and qualified refereeing is unconditional and obligatory fulfillment of such conditions and requirements for organizers and judges who will be officially approved at the FAI and will be mandatory for all World Cup Stages and Championships without exception. World and European Championships are included in the FAI schedule. These are very simple and easy-to-do requirements that by 99 percent will ensure and satisfy all without exception F2B pilots in all countries:
1. The result of the evaluation of the judges, the pilot must get his hands immediately after the end of his flight.
2. The results of the first round must be published for free access of all athletes, in the shortest possible time (maximum 30 minutes) before the start of the next round, along with schedules of refereeing of all judges for all athletes (statistics of all judges with results for each athlete).
These graphs make it possible to immediately determine a judge who puts his favorite athlete inadequately high marks, and his direct competitor (athlete from another country) - inadequately low marks, and deprives him of any opportunity for further struggle and competition.
 These schedules with the statistics of refereeing allow the athlete to file a valid protest, which will immediately knock the ground out from under the feet of any judge and any organizer. We have long been using a special program in Ukraine that builds refereeing schedules. As soon as we publish these schedules immediately after the first round, everything becomes clear right away, and we pilots and judges. The order comes instantly.
3. The final results for all rounds or for the final rounds must be published immediately after the end of the last round (maximum 30 minutes) and cannot be changed later after they have been submitted for all athletes. This is extremely important. In this case, it will not be what we all saw a year ago in France at the World Championships.

It is very important that these conditions are mandatory.
I also, like you and Brett, believe that in our modern computer age of programs and high technologies, it is high time to use a parallel computer program that will enable the chief referee of the competitions to accurately and without error determine the strongest pilot.

Regards
Ruslan Kurenkov

[Brett Buck]

I was going to stay out of this, aside from my inside comment, but I cannot let this stand unanswered.

I also, like you and Brett, believe that in our modern computer age of programs and high technologies, it is high time to use a parallel computer program that will enable the chief referee of the competitions to accurately and without error determine the strongest pilot.

   Hold on there, Ruslan!     I never said that and I do not believe that, quite the opposite. While I think there have been interesting steps taken to develop advanced methods (motion capture/photogrammetry) for various reasons I do not, in any way, support computer judging of stunt contests.

    Trained and fair judges are an irreplaceable resource, they are generally quite superior to any current or proposed objective system.

    If all agree there is an issue,  the solution is to not invite these judges back - not attempt to put the finger on them in public.

   Nor do I support any attempts to "evaluate" judges ex post facto using any sort of "analysis" of the type I have seen from Baron or some people in Europe. This just encourages the worst of bad and unsportsmanlike behavior, and the same thing - FROM A SINGLE TWO-DAY CONTEST in 1993 - nearly caused the destruction of the entire event in the USA when it got into the hands of the wrong people, and resulted in a FBI investigation for what would now be considered a terrorist threat.

 You cannot tell ANYTHING, repeat ANYTHING, objectively, by evaluating scores after the contest is over. I can come up with any number of ways to mathematically process the data, I do this for a living for things a lot more important than a stunt contest. Every one of them would be hailed as "unassailable" from a technical standpoint. But there is no way to take a particular score, and determine that it was correct, or not, without some third party evaluating the flight and then passing entirely subjective judgement on whether the score was fair or not.

   Read that again - the phrase "no way" is definitive, it cannot be done, it is impossible by its very nature. What you are asking the judges to do is give their opinion, that's their job, you can't go back afterwards and tell them their opinion is wrong. It might be different from yours, that is not a bug, it's a feature.

  Having said all that, I can't do anything about FAI contests and I don't have a dog in the fight any more.   I have said my piece, repeatedly, for decades, on the topic of what seems to be wrong with FAI stunt from my perspective.

  Out of respect to Peter, even though I knew better, I was dragged back in recently, and then got treated like the "country cousin"/"Ugly American" again, and dismissed out of hand, so, I bowed out. Not enough people in the FAI seem to be concerned with any of the very obvious problems with contest organization or administration (like not posting the scores in a timely matter or setting up the contest in a way that we wouldn't accept at a fun-fly) to do anything about it, or they don't accept my evaluation of the problem in the first place.   Fine, I am out of it.

  I will reserve judgement on the rest of your statements, and attribute any sort of other reaction to "cultural differences".  My solution to the "I didn't like my scores" problem is easy to find and easy to understand, avail yourself of it or not.

    Brett

[Howard Rush]

Stunt at the US Nationals is flown in three contest phases: qualification rounds, semifinals rounds, and finals rounds.  We score judges' performance for each of the first two phases and use their scores to determine who judges the later phases.  The formula we use compares an individual judge's ranking of contestants to the official, scoreboard ranking of contestants. Bill Lee proposed another formula, which produces similar results.  I don't know if either is statistically valid.  I can send you the formulas when I return from the 2019 Nationals, to which I shall travel this week to complain about the judging. 

[M Spencer]

" 2019 Nationals, to which I shall travel this week to complain about the judging. "

That sounds like a courageous decision , Sir .

However , if you tell them that youre there to / as a " Critique " it will lend an air of elan , dash , and mystique .
And could save some unfortunate miss perceptions and perhaps disastrous consequences .

[Howard Rush]

I'll be there to fly stunt.  The Jive Combat Team exudes elan, dash, and mystique, so that part is covered.

[Paul Walker]

I'll be there to fly stunt.  The Jive Combat Team exudes elan, dash, and mystique, so that part is covered.

Thus, you need no coaching.
Got it!   😜😜

[Howard Rush]

Thus, you need no coaching.
Got it!   😜😜

I wouldn’t say that. My overhead eights are a bit heavy on mystique.

[TDM]

I for one support the in flight tracking automated scoring. It can also be used in private for practice too. We already have video tracking and overlay of flight path geometry in place and it revels thing we do not normally see. An over lay of perfection over the existing with some software should be yielding a percent accuracy for each maneuver that can be imputed in the scores, be very accurate consistent across the board and void of bias, it does not get tired irritated or pissed off either. There will always be bias towards one or another and one thing for sure is the software doesn't add points because you fly a IC, piped IC or electric and will not add or subtract points because you are whoever. The only ones who are against and automated system are the one that benefit from the current system. Like always things move forward and so should we.

[Brett Buck]

Stunt at the US Nationals is flown in three contest phases: qualification rounds, semifinals rounds, and finals rounds.  We score judges' performance for each of the first two phases and use their scores to determine who judges the later phases.  The formula we use compares an individual judge's ranking of contestants to the official, scoreboard ranking of contestants. Bill Lee proposed another formula, which produces similar results.  I don't know if either is statistically valid.  I can send you the formulas when I return from the 2019 Nationals, to which I shall travel this week to complain about the judging.

   I would point out that the value of this is not that it finds the "good" and "bad" judges, but that it isolates the organizers from attempting to pick "good" or "bad" judges, and then getting second-guessed and/or threatened with death for it.

   It might remove a wild partisan, but you are taking statistics with n=3 at the best of times, so if you buy the premise of "tracking" as a statistical process, it still has huge error bars that swamp the differences.

  "Judge evaluation" and almost nothing in stunt is actually a stochastic process, and differences in the scores or ranking are not (or at least cannot be proven to be) "errors" or "deviations" in the sense used in statistics. Yes, you can take the numbers and treat them that way with any number of mathematical methods - but *this is not fundamentally a math problem*. 

    Seeding via Paul's algorithm is the same - the value is not that it shifts the best fliers around from circle to circle in some mathematically justifiable way, it's that it keeps the organizers from getting accused of doing it to rig the contest.

    The sort of analysis that I have seen from Baron, and at least a few different European or other foreign sources, was used to identify and finger judges as "cheaters" and the commentary contained a number of toss-off comments about how individuals were "obviously biased". This is the rankest of rank whining. That someone might lose a stunt contest when they didn't deserve to is a minor problem. Working math for days in various ways to get the desired smoking gun required to tag individuals as cheaters is utterly unacceptable and should not be part of stunt in any way.

     Baron started with the premise that having the scores shift by a point or two from one day to the next was the result of Gary McClellan screwing him, and worked it over and over until he had a supposed figure of merit that "proved" it. If I start with a desired result, I guarantee that I can come up with a method to process the scores that "proves" it, and I also guarantee I could make it plausible enough that no one could challenge it on a technical basis. It might be (almost certainly would be) utter statistical nonsense, but otherwise unassailable. That's the issue I am concerned with in this thread.

     Brett

[Randy Powell]

I agree with Brett. Same reason I don't want a pitch tracker calling balls and strikes at a baseball game.

[Brett Buck]

I agree with Brett. Same reason I don't want a pitch tracker calling balls and strikes at a baseball game.

   We can make it perfectly objective! The 4 people who still care afterwards will have unerring results! What a great benefit to baseball/stunt that will be. 

   I fail to see why we assume we are failing or somehow defective, and then look for "solutions", instead of looking at what has made stunt an almost  unique success (check out the entry numbers for essentially all other competition events) and trying to enhance it.

    Brett

[Ted Fancher]

For what it’s worth…

I have flown/flew actively in stunt/F2B contests from about 11 years of age until my more or less competitive retirement about the time I qualified for Social Security.  During that time I’d flown and had my performance evaluated by--probably—several hundred or so different judges.   Not once did I feel it necessary (or desirable) to complain about either their competency or the honesty of their evaluation of the winners and losers.

Flying in and judging stunt events “effectively” are both functions of knowledge, observation, performance and evaluation of the accuracy and “score sheet value” of the required “tricks.”  Of those factors the number to be entered on the score sheet is, by far, THE MOST NEBULOUS AND POORLY DEFINED FACTOR in assessing the quality of any maneuver and, yet, doing so ultimately determines the competitive outcome of any stunt event.

Almost by definition, the evaluation of maneuvers is in large measure fungible.  That is, subject to a judge’s personal interpretation of the demands required to perform the tricks and the degree of excellence with which those demands are met.  The manner by which judges make those evaluations will always be…like Beethoven versus the Beatles…to a large degree, a matter of opinion.

My attitude about competing in such a subjectively evaluated competition is that I can only insure that I am performing to the best of my ability.  I must always assume that my competitors are performing to the best of theirs; and, most importantly, that the judges are doing exactly the same thing at a task probably as or more difficult to do accurately than what it is we pilots are doing.

To do otherwise is an exercise in self-flagellation, the only predictable outcome of which is self imposed misery on the part of the accuser and the undeserved finger pointing accusations predictably heaped upon those alleged to have "profitted" via the un-provable accusations.

Guys, asking an individual to judge and subjectively evaluate our patterns is asking for his/her opinion PLUS his/her determination of what the reward/penalty appropriate for, probably, hundreds to thousands of maneuvers and tens of thousands of possible errors in a given competition.  Nowhere does the rule book define each and every possible error nor does it tell the judge what the appropriate penalty for each such failure should be deducted from 10. WE ASK FOR THEIR OPINION AND THEY DUTIFULLY PROVIDE IT.

In my opinion the appropriate exchange between pilots and judges following a competition is a hand shake and a “thank you for your hard work” from a pilot to the judges followed by a “thank you for doing your best” from the judges.

The most important thing we must accept is that a competition is over when it is over!!!!!  Nobody wins via an ex post facto attempt to excoriate an individual judge for writing his/her opinion of the value of the hundreds upon hundreds of maneuvers he/she has been tasked with assessing.  Each score from each judge is, by definition, his/her assessment.  No one, especially other competitors can “know” the basis on which that judge arrived at the decisions he/she has been asked to assign.  The only supportable position is the assumption that he/she called ‘em as he/she saw them.  Nobody else knows.

Just one old timer's opinion.

Ted

[Keith Renecle]

As always, I appreciate Brett and Ted's comments. However, the reason why I thanked Ruslan for his courage in making his teams unhappiness known to the organizers, is that many of the pilots know too well which judges are good and which of them are "not-so-good", but they keep quiet, and the same judges are not phased out, so the same problem gets perpetuated. These issues have not gone unnoticed by the F2B sub committee and we are working on a standard judges training program. It's not an easy task with so many different countries and languages involved, but it is happening.

So it is not a case of "closing the gate after the horse has bolted sort of thing" or as Ted stated in no uncertain terms, that "when the contest is over its over". The Polish organizers of this particular world cup are mostly the same team that will organize next years' world champs, and should take serious note of Ruslans's comments. Hopefully some of the other European teams will add to the Ukraine teams comments. We certainly don't want a repeat of the 2014 world champs chaos where at the team manager's meeting, the majority of the F2B teams said that they were not prepared to fly on those surfaces, and that they would indeed rather get the money back and go home. Please note that the combat fliers also had serious problems because of this wild grass and the sand that made really good grinding paste for their engines. Early next morning they got a huge water tanker vehicle and the the field was watered quite well and then the circles were rolled but a big metal roller. Problem is that you can't fix a bad grass field in a day or even a week, so although things improved slightly, it was still awful.

I would also like to state in all sincerity, that the intent and motivation for those of us on the F2B sub committee is not to crucify any judges personally, but to help to improve the judging standard. Sure, it will never be perfect, but every small step forward helps, and I believe that at a world championships the competitors deserve the best possible judges. It takes years of work and dedication to even fly at the level of the "middle of the pack". The guys right at the top have to sacrifice much of their life to get that good! It also costs plenty of money to get to these competitions, so the pilot's deserve a fair deal in the judging department.

Keith R

[Brett Buck]

I would also like to state in all sincerity, that the intent and motivation for those of us on the F2B sub committee is not to crucify any judges personally, but to help to improve the judging standard.

    The F2B subcommittee leadership may think that. The F2B subcommittee membership seems to be far more interested in maintaining their control over it, and have repeatedly rejected quite obvious steps forward. Anyone that thinks it makes sense to run a 100-entry world championship the way it is currently done, at the sites that are routinely accepted, doesn't give a flying rat's ass about putting on the best possible contest, and yet it is  accepted  over and over, throw up your hands and say "what can be done"?

 People were arguing that it "obviously has to be this way" as recently as last August - at least one apparently out of spite over a prior personal conflict. In the last year, it was suggested to remove the takeoff and a number of other maneuvers from the scoring, the takeoff being removed *to make it possible to hand-launch the airplane if the Wold Champs site did not permit safe takeoffs*. At a WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!?

   The larger FAI, and  the CIAM, is dedicated to maintaining European dominance over administration and making sure that various FAI bigwigs have nice boondoggle trips, and screw the competitors. Over and over, work by the F2B subcommittee is agreed to, then vetoed in secret by non-participants. They harbor the delusion that they are like the UN or IOC - the two most famously corrupt organizations in the world; in that, they are a grand success. 

   I have no idea why international competitors put up with it, the FAI provides essentially nothing and brings nothing to the table as far as stunt goes. Can someone explain what it is they get out of the FAI that makes it crucial to your contest organization? I have asked repeatedly, no has ever come up with a concrete answer - just "they make it official". 

    There is nothing going on at these contests that requires any unique new solutions, these are all long-solved problems. But plenty of people are quite willing or anxious to reject the answer, because they don't like the source. Fine, no skin off my nose,  but they can't then claim that everyone is working in the best interests of the event, because apparently their egos are more important.

 

Sure, it will never be perfect, but every small step forward helps, and I believe that at a world championships the competitors deserve the best possible judges. It takes years of work and dedication to even fly at the level of the "middle of the pack". The guys right at the top have to sacrifice much of their life to get that good! It also costs plenty of money to get to these competitions, so the pilot's deserve a fair deal in the judging department.

     Maybe you see some progress, but as of late last year, it seemed that anything that may have been gained since the late 90's is in significant danger of getting reverted, and absolutely nothing positive has been done to correct the obvious flaws, even after repeated failures at the biggest contests. At best the proposed changes are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You are going to run the same treadmill to oblivion in Poland that you did in France, you are still going to abuse the judges to the point they can only concentrate on one element at time, because ce sont les rčgles, n'est-ce pas?

     No one asked me, I just got dragged in,  so this is completely gratis - international competitors need to blow up the system and start over from first principles.

       Brett

p.s. I had the same reaction Ted had ( since I have heard very similar complaints from a few US competitors since my first contest in 1981 and long since had my fill of it). I was chalking it up to "cultural differences". But, since it's out there, any issue with the running of a particular contest could easily have been handled in a few phone calls or emails, not in a public forum.

      If it is generally agreed that there was a problem - as opposed to some people just not liking the results - then there are several obvious solutions and paths forward, none of which involve calling out the organizers or judges in an international forum.

     

[Ted Fancher]

[quote author"The guys right at the top have to sacrifice much of their life to get that good! It also costs plenty of money to get to these competitions, so the pilot's deserve a fair deal in the judging department.

Keith R
[/quote]

Hi Keith,  While understanding the intent of your remarks and meaning no animus...

First: The reason for holding any stunt event is to determine as accurately and fairly as possible who is "...right at the top..." after completion of all flights.

Second: True, the fact that it "...costs plenty of money..." both in preparation for and attendance at these competitions...is a burden borne by all who compete.  Some to a greater or lesser degree than others depending on the distance they must travel and their financial ability to bear that burden.

Third: All the pilots--not just the ones "right at the top" deserve a "...fair deal..." from the judges.

Knowing your character I've no doubt you would agree in principle with your comments even as amended above.

I think my biggest concern after reading all of the points of view expressed here (and I expect even a lot more in other fora, etc.) is how public and critical the concerns have become and the great possibility of condemning an individual whose only fault may well be that he/she simply sees things differently and, perhaps, critiques certain aspects to a greater degree than others.  Again, I stress the abject...and likely unfixable...lack of definition in the rules as to how to go about decreasing scores for given errors and degrees of those errors.  It is entirely possible that the "culprit" who is the subject of this debate feels his/her marks are consistent with their assessment of the undefined values that must be addressed prior to putting a number on a score sheet.  The reality is that there is no way of knowing "why and how" he/she has made the decisions they made.

I simply hate to see this ugly dragon raising its head again in an event I've loved for the vast majority of my life.  The decisions judges are required to make on each of, perhaps, several thousand maneuvers during a large competition must be made in the privacy of each judges' mental calculator.  It is almost certainly true that no-one can divine from outside of the head in which that calculator is stored the bases on which those decisions were made.

My last of way more than my share of words, my friend.  Hope all this comes to a satisfying and amicable solution.

Ted Fancher

[M Spencer]

First: The reason for holding any stunt event is to determine as accurately and fairly as possible who is "...right at the top..." after completion of all flights.

Id think in any sporting event , if that was the case , thered only be maybe a half dozen competators show up , if the goal was a win .

They must be in it for the money ! . 

Motorsport , Golf , fishing , tiddly winks , Id think most show up to ' have a go ' get out of the house , do something they enyoy in a common group rather than idividually .Boston Marathon analogy again . If only Posn ONE was the sole objective , you wouldnt get a tenth the entries .

Not knocking the goal of number one , but its NOT the motivation for the majority of the competitors , " seeing how we go " ,
and likely ' improving their game ' is more realistic for 90 % of entrants .

Still , a fair unbiased event ' is as important and relevant to the majority of competitors also . But faschism isnt enjoyable for most .

A lot of the Nats Entries will be as or more intrested in how they go against their mates , or how their ' rateing ' , improvement pans out .
If No ONE was the Sole MOTIVATION , theired be many loosers & 99 % Hopefulls .

" For the Love of the Sport " was Hailwoods Moto . Id think that was true for the majority of entrants . Let alone the Judges , back up etc .

Nothin personal , but think a grand overview is required for the health of the event . Not everyones into bickering or theyed take up knitting .

[Ruslan Kurenkov]

Hello, friends ! 
I am very glad that you all expressed your opinion.
 I am very grateful to you all.  I also apologize for not having participated in the discussion for a long time.  I had absolutely no time because of my starts in Bulgaria.  Our team won the third team place, our junior won the tournament, and one of our team members, athlete Nikolay Turchenko, became the third in the individual competition.  The European Championship judging was at a very high level, this is the opinion of the majority of athletes with whom I spoke and personally my opinion.  The situation with refereeing in V
Wierzavice is almost resolved.  The organizers have already identified one of the three judges who made a mistake.  I also apologize to Bratt.  I misunderstood his opinion about e-judging.  We, the majority of F2B athletes in Ukraine, compiled a closed rating of F2B judges.  The judges have never seen this rating.  According to this rating, the organizers of the competition invite the judges to their starts.  Such a referee rating is in Football, in FIFA.  Also, after the first round, we immediately publish the refereeing schedules for all judges and all athletes.  If an error occurs, the tournament organizer is trying to correct this error before the start of the second round.  It works and it always worked.  Such schedules should be compiled after each round at all major starts.  And only the organizer decides for himself what to do with these schedules.  They can not publish for everyone.  This is a private matter of the organizer.  If the F2B committee in any country sends each F2B sportsman a list with all F2B judges, then you will receive a letter in reply where the athlete in front of each judge will score on a 10-point system of refereeing.  So you get a closed rating of judges, which can not be published so as not to offend our beloved and respected judges.  And if the organizer invites judges according to this rating, there will be no problems with judging.  In our country, this system has been operating for 4 years.  Only those athletes whose judges are no longer at the start are dissatisfied.  I will also be very grateful to Howard for providing the program, if possible.  I wish you all good starts and good grades in the future.  I think that all of us, by joint efforts, can change our starts for the better.  I hope so.  And I know for sure that if we do not discuss our any problems here on the forum, it will be very difficult to change anything.  Truth and publicity - it hurts, but it's fair.  I am not ashamed of my truth, and I can proudly and with dignity say it personally in the face of everyone whom it concerns.  This is my life position.  I just can not live differently.
Regards
Ruslan Kurenkov , Ukraine

[PJ Rowland]

I wonder if the organisers of the event will issue a letter having a cry ?

I tend to agree with the concensus here... even the most ineptly organised and run stunt event is basically a volunteer service for the ammusement of us to all fly toy planes.

Getting anything other than pleasure from the competition is looking for validation in areas judges wont provide.

Do your best.. put your best package out there and put up your best flights for YOURSELF.

Going to a contest with a certain level of expectation based upon the score/results is flawed thinking.

If you go out and you have spent 6 days a week practising full time your expectation should be on yourself to perform. If you do that and still get a low score.. so be it.
Be happy with your performance not the scores or outcome.

If you cannot find the pleasure in the activity then this isnt the sport for you. We rely only on someones opinion.. only an opinion.. nothing more.

Sure it hurts to put up flights that are enough to win the contest and you get lower than a place. been there.. cried about that.. even kicked up a fuss once or twice.

At the end of the day... NONE of it matters.

NONE..

Noone has any financial gains out of high performances at World cup events... so its never worth getting frustrated over.

I understand the need to vent frustration.. but .. alas I learnt the HARD WAY that jumping online ranting about how poorly you scored ; sounds and looks bad.

Its poor sportmanship, its not in the spirit of what the last 60+ years of history of Aerobatics competition has been built upon.

Millions of flights.. millions of scores.. lots of people who didnt win and decided to devote their time either
A.. elsewhere.
B . In trying to build a better plane and improve..

Generally speaking 95% even in poorly run competitons (which ive been involved in many times...) the winner is usually pretty close to correct.

Nice to hear a good old complaint now and then.. but.. I spent 2 years in therapy trying to answer the question as to why I care about what a judges opinion is out of 10..

My life is so much more.. 

I KNOW you have lots of passion and you work very hard at F2B ... but use that to your advantage.

There is nothing to gain other than self progression.


I once was told by a former World Champion the following..

"What would you prefer to be remebered as ?
a world champion that everyone disliked because all you wanted was to win.. or a fellow competitor that had heart and looked out for your brothers in aeromodelling ?

Take a look at Igor as a perfect example.
He is willing to help anyone with any question no matter your skill level, has developed systems and designs useful for high level competiton to his competition. Thats its only market!!

He Does win alot granted... but doesnt win everything and is always humble and happy in defeat.

Look for your pleasure in aerobatics internally. Do it for your own reasons for sure. But the score isnt the goal...