Running out of numbers?

[peabody]

Paul Taylor's link about the 1979 Nats was interesting, and got me to wondering: Werwage's 470 1/2 winning flight would be around 450 today, because the possible Appearance Points were 40 instead of 20.

The high scoring flights at the Nats today are regularly 125 points higher.

Are those flights really that much better? Or have we, as judges, adjusted our scores ever higher?

Is the upward creep good?

Have fun

[peabody]

LOL

[Ken Culbertson]

I reached my competitive peak somewhere around 1980.  My job and family kept me from traveling very far so I never got to see the rest of the picture but Dallas was pretty much the epicenter of US stunt during those years.  Most of the scores were in the upper 400's with a few scattered low 500's. Nobody I knew thought that a 600 was realistic. I was out (not by choice) from '82 till 2016 and started flying again in 2017.  When I came back I commented on what I thought was score inflation and I was pretty much shot down.

So, here is my take after 2 years back into competition.  Are the patterns better - no.  Are the planes better - yes.  Does the better plane present better and handle various weather conditions better - yes.  Is judging different - no but the emphasis is different.  Does the best pilot win and the worst place last regardless of the score - most of the time.

So why the higher scores?  In part I think it is the superior equipment that gives average pilots a comfort zone and older pilots like myself something that is easier to fly.  Emphasis is not so much on tight corners and low bottoms.  I can hit a 5-6' bottom still but the 4' we flew back then is a distant memory.  So we have a lot of very experienced older pilots with deteriorating reflexes pushing the younger bunch which will drive scores up. 

To answer your final question, "Is the upward creep good?"  My answer is no but it is also unavoidable - and regional.  The "creep" locally is almost entirely from the quality of the equipment and not that much - about 50 points so it is not really "Creep".  Go north a couple of hundred miles and it is around 100.

Personally I like a much wider range in scores.  The pressure on a judge to ignore small mistakes for the top fliers really bunches them up which is not fair to them.  If you trace even the best of the best you are going to see small errors on almost every maneuver.  As it is with the 600 scores we are seeing that is on average a 37+ on every maneuver with 20 appearance points.  Having no room at the top for perfection really degrades it when you see it.

I know that my opinions are not widely shared but sometimes you can see the whole playing field better from the cheap seats.

Ken


 

[Dick Byron]

    I can remember a judge that had a very unusual scoring goof. After my first flight the scores between the first judge and the second judge in my circle, there was an 80 point spread between them for my flight. I was able to revue almost all the other score sheets of that circle and the spread between all the other fliers was 5 to 9 points. Do you think there was something wrong? 
   

   Dick Byron

[FLOYD CARTER]

It has been pointed out that actual scores are not that important.  What matters is that final results still represent the correct ranking of the flights of that particular day.

To the question "are today's flights better than in the past?"?    Absolutely so.
Today's top flyers are producing flights very close to the ideal.  You can cite better equipment, better designs, or more dedicated practice.  Regardless, the result is that greater numbers of flyers are approaching the "perfect" flight.

[peabody]

They are pretty close to running out of numbers....

As to the argument that modern planes/power is what makes the difference, it seems to me that several past Walker Cup winners have flown their Classic eligible, period correct (often the original) planes in events like VSC or the Nats with score3s that are over 500 points...

[Chris McMillin]

This from the guy that told me he never scored Bob Whitely as high as 500 points...
And you thought the judges were unbiased!
How do you feel about your Nats scores now, Joe Bellcrank?
Chris...

LOL

[Ken Culbertson]

To the question "are today's flights better than in the past?"?    Absolutely so.

I think it depends at what level you are evaluating "better".  At the very top I don't think the quality of the patterns have changed much.  Consistency perhaps due to better hardware in poor conditions but are they better?  Do you think that a 1979 Gieseke was not as good as today's top patterns?  If you do then you didn't see him fly.  Where the quality has changed is the next level.  The "Top 20" if you will.  They are much better then they were "in the day".

Ken

[Brett Buck]

I think it depends at what level you are evaluating "better".  At the very top I don't think the quality of the patterns have changed much.  Consistency perhaps due to better hardware in poor conditions but are they better?  Do you think that a 1979 Gieseke was not as good as today's top patterns?  If you do then you didn't see him fly. 

    Not in 1979, but 1981. I absolutely loved the guy, but no. He knew it, too, that why he changed everything he was doing afterward, and flew much better.

   The standard is Paul Walker in the 1990-1994 time frame, it was a huge step change that took many years for others to even begin to challenge.
 

Where the quality has changed is the next level.  The "Top 20" if you will.  They are much better then they were "in the day".

   That is indeniably true, and it goes much further down than that - basically anyone who is willing to try it can take advantage of the engine and trim breakthroughs in the late 80s-90s, and now electric, and more-or-less bypass the many years/decades/infinity of learning how to get 4-2 break engines to work at a competitive level. Unfortunately, a lot of people either don't know how much better it is, or are scared off by it, and continue to try to flog away with ancient techniques that the stunt world dropped 30 years ago.

     Brett

[Ken Culbertson]

Not in 1979, but 1981. I absolutely loved the guy, but no. He knew it, too, that why he changed everything he was doing afterward, and flew much better.

I have to bow to your greater experience on this one.  It is near impossible to compare the greats from two eras and pick which one was better.  What would Bob have been had he had the best of his Bears when he was at his athletic peak?  The next generation started out there and Paul is without a doubt the Gold Standard of that group.  But, I have never seen him fly in person so I am going to play the "Home Team" card and stick with Bob.

I flew with him 3-4 times a week from around 1975 to about 1980.   Memory fades but If I remember it right Bob had arranged his shift to give him mornings and I worked nights.  I would put my plane in my car and meet him after work in the summer around 6:30am.  He would already have a couple of flights under his belt by the time I got there.  I would fly with him for about an hour then head home.  He would stay.  He was one of the nicest fliers I have ever met but he was all business back then and if you wanted to fly on his circle you had better be too.  Just flying with him those years raised my pattern from pretty good to where I could have easily qualified at the Nats if I could have gone.  I am the only one in our little flying group that flew with Bob before he transitioned to the big ships which is a shame since they never got to see him at his peak.  He was an artist.  By the time I returned to flying he had already passed.  I understand from those who flew with him through the 80's and 90's that it took him a while to adapt to the bigger ships then time and mother nature chipped away at his edge.

Ken

[Tim Wescott]

The next generation started out there and Paul is without a doubt the Gold Standard of that group.

I'm not sure who you tend to fly against, but if you look at whose won the Nats, or even placed second or third in the last five or ten years -- any one of them is comparable with Paul.  So if you fly with one of those guys, watch their flights, and you'll have a good idea of how good Paul flies.

I have the advantage of competing on the same circuit as Paul.  I've had the challenge of trying to judge the guy, and a few others who are as consistently good (and consistently as good).  It's not easy picking out mistakes in his maneuvers.  He (and Dave Fitzgerald, and Chris Cox) does make them, but where I'm deviating from perfect by feet, he deviates by inches.  You need to be on your toes and concentrating to see the errors at all.

I can't remember the exact score that won the Nationals this year, but it was five ninety mumble.  Call it 595.  Assuming 20 appearance points that means an average of 36 2/3 points per maneuver.  That means that the judges are subtracting three or four points for deviations of a few inches at the intersections, a few degrees on the verticals and levels, and seeing glitches at the intersections of the overhead eights (@Paul) that are barely there.  That's deviations from the assigned flight path of just 1% or 2% of the total flight path size -- and we're dropping their score by 7% to 10% for it.

...  I can hit a 5-6' bottom still but the 4' we flew back then is a distant memory.  ...

If you go strictly by the rules*, a 4' bottom is worse than a 5' bottom but should only raise an eyebrow, and a 3' 11" bottom should be penalized.  The rules leave it open whether 3' 11" is as bad as 6' 1", but they're both outside the allowed bounds by the same amount.  If you think that getting more points for lower bottoms is right and proper, then submit a rules change proposal.

(If I'm judging you, then within that 4' to 6' band I'm going to give you pretty much the same score if you establish your bottom line in that first wingover and stick to it.  If you have 5' 11" bottoms in the wingover and 4' 1" bottoms everywhere else, I won't ding you much -- but if successive maneuvers march up I'll ding you for it; if they march down I'll ding you for it and I'll be surprised!  If you go below 4', I will ding you for it.  I've dinged Paul Walker for it on at least one occasion; I felt like the student admonishing the teacher, especially because he was clearly just having fun at a local contest, but -- rulz is rulz.)

* And I believe that we should go by the rules as written, not by "well, everybody just knows" -- in spite of the complainers, ours is a democratic rules process.  If everybody "just knows", and they notice a discrepancy with the written rules, they should file a rules change proposal!

[Trostle]

(Clip)


(If I'm judging you, then within that 4' to 6' band I'm going to give you pretty much the same score if you establish your bottom line in that first wingover and stick to it.    (Clip)   .)

(Clip) 

Why?  What does the "bottom line in that first wingover" have to do with how the bottoms of any other maneuver is scored? There is a 4 to6 foot band for the bottoms of various aneuvers.  Each should be scored on its own merits, not on how well or poorly the bottoms of that first wingover is performed.

Granted, when watching the better pilots execute the pattern, there is a consistency or fluidity or symmetry throughout the pattern that definitely should have an influence on how a judge scores as the pattern progresses.

Keith

Addendum:

I should have mentioned that there is nothing in the rule book or the judge's guide that says anything about scoring subsequent maneuvers based on how well or poorly the wingover is flown.

K

[Ken Culbertson]

 

Why?  What does the "bottom line in that first wingover" have to do with how the bottoms of any other maneuver is scored? There is a 4 to6 foot band for the bottoms of various aneuvers.  Each should be scored on its own merits, not on how well or poorly the bottoms of that first wingover is performed.

Granted, when watching the better pilots execute the pattern, there is a consistency or fluidity or symmetry throughout the pattern that definitely should have an influence on how a judge scores as the pattern progresses.

Keith

[Phil Spillman]

Absolutely patterns are getting very close to the "idea;" and there's no doubt about it! The top guy buys his ESC his most consistent battery, charged to the exact level of peak yield, tunes the entire package on his perfect PC and then pushes the perfect button to perform the perfect pattern! There's no room for variables except for perhaps nerves and the environment! Why not expect the perfect pattern EVERY time? In today's totally PC Controlled electric environment there's very little room for error save a really bad brain fade!

Phil Spillman

[Bob Hunt]

Perfect flights are coming.

Yeah, when perfect pigs fly...

Bob Hunt 

[Ken Culbertson]

Yeah, when perfect pigs fly...

Bob Hunt

If I name my 70oz Sandpiper - "Perfect Pig" can I get a 645?

[Brett Buck]

Yeah, when perfect pigs fly...

   THAT is what people don't get!   We are nowhere close to perfecting it, anyone, at any time. Even the very best flights have lots of visible errors - if you know what to look for. And the better you are flying, the more obvious your own (and everyone else's) errors become. The judges do a very good job of separating the competitors, but not a good job of hitting brackets, nor should they. I have flown 600+ point flights and come in 5th place, which to me was a gift.

   You don't have to be perfect - you just have to be better than everyone else. Or - you don't have to outrun the lion, you just have to outrun your buddies.

     Brett