Page 2 of 6 FirstFirst 1234 ... LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 57

Thread: Proposed Knowns and Rules for 2012

  1. #11

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    3
    Only two of the proposed rule changes give me real heartburn. One is the 60% rule. Let's say a "newbie" shows up, pays his $125 or more entry fee and signs up for his/her first contest in primary. Although this new competitor is enthusiastic, has gone to judging school, and volunteers for every job at the contest, he hasn't had much practice or critiqueing, and scores less than 60% on his first contest flight ever. So he is told to "Go home! You can't compete! We don't want you here." Way to be inclusive. That would have happened to three competitors in just the Southeast Region so far this year.
    The other problem I have is with the BRS proposal. I don't think I'd want to pull the red handle in a flaming dope and fabric airplane. Also, in an experimental aircraft, there are no required paarameters for such a system. No inclusion in the aircraft type certificate data sheet. No TSO.You could tie a red bandana to the tailwheel of a Sukhoi and call it a ballistic recovery chute.

  2. #12

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    New Hampshire
    Posts
    1,342
    Rules change proposals:

    12-1 looks reasonable. I vote YES.

    12-4 looks reasonable. I vote YES.

    12-5 makes sense. I vote YES.

    12-6 I vote NO. I have enough problem judging an S-1 at the top and back of the 3500' box. If they fly any farther away I will have to start giving zero for the positioning/presentation score and "A" for all of the figure scores.

    12-7 I vote NO. I observe a lot of Sportsman pilots who have very under-developed wind correction skills. I also observe that many pilots begin competing in the Sportsman category. I believe that downwind starts should begin to appear in the Intermediate category at the earliest.

    12-8 I vote YES. Modern ballistic recovery parachutes have demonstrated that they can be successfully deployed at lower altitudes than you or I can successfully manually climb out of the cockpit, pull a ripcord, and get an open parachute from. The hang-glider and ultralight guys have a surprisingly good record of using them. And now we are starting to see some pretty startling reports of full size airplanes deploying them successfully.

    12-9 I vote YES. Our contest always has a number of pilots sharing one or two Decathlons and out Primary and Sportsman orders of flight are always juggled to avoid stalling the contest by having two pilots sharing one airplane fly back-to-back.

    12-10 I vote NO. ICAS has their own rules and administrative procedures and IAC has no input into the operation, administration, or integrity of the ICAS processes. I also suspect that if an Advanced competitor has the skills to fly a 4 Minute Free, they can choose to fly in the Unlimited category. This appears to be a solution to a non-problem.

    12-11 I vote NO. I believe that the adoption of this rule proposal will knock almost all of the airplanes that have no inverted systems out of Sportsman. We see very skilled pilots score well in some of these airplanes, but we also see entry level pilots fly safely, but make pinched and hurried figures that can not honestly be given good scores.

    12-12 No opinion. We do not see any gliders or motorgliders at our contests.

    12-13 I vote YES. The current grading criteria for loops is sufficiently vague that we see surprisingly high scores awarded to loops that are far from round. This will help guide Judges who are currently scoring a loop flown as an "e" as an 8 instead of a 4.

    12-14 The explanation makes sense. I vote YES.

    Thanks.

  3. #13
    I

  4. #14
    i vote for spt c,it is practical and allows the pilot to fly instead of having 2 45' in one line.

  5. #15
    I vote for Intermediate Proposal "P". It appears to offer a challenge to the competitor and appears to have good flow.

    Rule change 12-6 I am not real sure of reasoning. Do we really have a safety issue with Primary and Sportsman? I don't think we do and I have students flying both categories in a Super Decathlon. Rule change 12-11, I disagree with the 60% rule. This decision should be left to the Chief Judges as they have the experienced to call someone out of the box if they see an inability to fly the sequence safely. The rest of the proposed rule changes seem logical, but I'm not totally comfortable with the aircraft recover chute. I will have to divert to Parachute experts here. When you think about the time it takes to Egress from a disabled aircraft and compare that to the time it takes to deploy a Airframe Recovery System, if that airframe recovery system functions at some very unusual aircraft attitudes, I guess I can see the logic. I recall a recent video of the pilot overseas, I believe Italy, where the wing folded up on his LSA during acro and he successfully deployed the airframe chute, so if that is the basis for the proposed rule, I guess I'm ok with it. I just have to ask how many acro incidents have there been where an airframe chute saved the pilot? We need more than "ONE" to establish a baseline. The personal parachute is still my option, airframe recover chute or not...

    Dave Honaker
    Four Winds Aviation
    McKinney Texas

  6. #16
    Rule Changes:

    12-1 Support. Advanced flying is clearly headed the way of international competition and we should fully coordinate our rules with CIVA's. A larger box will be a benefit and for newbie ADV pilots who don't want to fly that low, they don't have to!

    12-4 Support, as long as there would be no appreciable impact on judging pool.

    12-5 Support

    12-6 (box height increase to 4K for P and S) DO NOT support. Hard to see planes, longer climb times. Fitting certain sequences in is a challenge, but that's part of the game, and it is not impossible. Also, this proposed change is justified on "leveling the playing field" performance wise. That won't work. We are all operating with the limitations of our particular aircraft, for better or worse. It is also justified based on providing a greater emergency cushion. If a competitor is not safe with a 3500 ceiling, he will not be safe at 4000. Then when someone augers in from 4K, we'll raise it to 4.5 and so on and so on. Infinite altitude is no substitute for pilot skill. Stability in rules and expectations is more desirable than attempting to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

    12-7 (Downwind start for S and I). DO NOT support. Agree with previous comments about Sportsman being an introductory category, there is no need, and Sportsman can fly two free's of their own design if they are bored...or move up. As to Intermediate, this would only impact the K flight, since a free and unknown could start downwind or crosswind. The intermediate repertoire can be effectively expanded by careful addition of figures, not direction of flight.

    12-8 (BRS chutes in lieu of personal parachute). DO NOT support. Standards and verification unclear. The personal parachute rule is a good one and is not the least bit onerous or unreasonable. There is no need to deviate from a long established norm. In addition, this could be an endorsement of these systems by IAC, in the legal sense, so why would we want to convince a jury that we got rid of a long standing, sensible rule?

    12-9 Support

    12-10 (250 ICAS Waiver allows for ADV competitors to fly 4 minute free). DO NOT SUPPORT. Why not let Intermediate's do it too? Its a slippery slope and I agree with previous comments that ICAS is not IAC. Different missions, different purpose and I do not think that IAC should set a standard based on another organization. The four minute free is the residual nod to the Lockheed Trophy from the 1950's, which was deemed to be too subjective. Unlimited is a different and special class and should remain so. If competition flying is not fun enough, go fly airshows (I'm sure we've all thought about it). If you want to fly a free, you must leave primary to go to sportsman or higher, if you want to fly an unknown, you must leave sportsman to fly Intermediate. If you want to fly for a team, you must leave Intermediate to fly Advanced or higher and if you want to fly the 4 minute free, you must fly Unlimited. Its a good system with lots of thought and natural progression built in. Why change it?

    12-11 (new disqualification standards, based on scores) DO NOT SUPPORT. I'm grateful to our CD's and Safety committees. They have a tough job. This seems like a way to DQ people and hide behind numbers. We are an organization that lives by mentoring, relationships and the generosity of our members, so I would leave it to the safety committee/jury and CD as well as mentors and competitors in higher categories to intervene and try to help the individual. The attitude of the individual is a lot more important than the performance, per se. If a person is having trouble and can be reasoned with, we have an opportunity to help that person, whereas a person who will not listen and continues to do dangerous things is beyond help from a rule. Bottom line, low performing and dangerous situations require human intervention, not a rule.

    12-13 (new loop judging criteria) DO NOT SUPPORT. Seems to assume first quarter will be performed well. Overall loop is what is being graded. Judging methodology is not as important as consistency across all competitors, which the fair play system should take care of. Also, this is a subjective sport no matter what anybody says and the rest of the world doesn't try to break every figure into little units, they look at the art. Our judging is (supposedly) technical enough already.

    12-14 (do not require foreign license holder to have FAA Medical). Support. CAVEAT: might want to run through legal or change wording to simply say something like, "must be legal to perform the duties of pilot in command in accordance with FAR's." As long as someone is legal to fly, I don't know why we are getting so specific about these requirements.


    SEQUENCES

    Intermediate:

    I realize that this is the most difficult category to frame, and we continue to struggle with setting the difficulty level appropriately between Sportsman and Advanced. (To me) 3 years ago Intermediate looked like a stretch, now it looks too easy, and this is how it should be, but in the past two years it seems that high G maneuvers have often taken the place of figures that require skill (namely the full snap on the 45 up line and simple rolling turns). I am happy to see the rolling turn in 4 out of the 5 released proposals, but think the full snap on the 45 upline needs to be included. It is naturally grouped with the avalanche, 45 down full snap, and the two full level-line snaps, upright to upright and inverted to inverted starting from a positive loading (from the unknown appendix). Perfecting these full snaps is the foundation for beginning to explore and build competency in the fractional flicks, so why is the full snap on the 45 upline excluded?

    Proposal C: Avalanche type figure last two years and square loop from two years ago. Too many basic figures.

    Proposal F: Lots of truly intermediate figures here, all of which are safe and require a decent amount of skill to be competitive at: full roll on 45 upline, 2 pt roll on top of loop, mild push on shark, rolling turn, 12 to 13 has plane accelerating into snap from low speed.

    Proposal H: I believe there would be energy issues for the reference aircraft. 4 to 5 puts lower performance aircraft at an extreme disadvantage, not a measure of skill.

    Proposal L: nice dynamic snap, altitude and energy requirements are good and placement of roller at end is good. Might want to change figure 7, teardrop, to a hump, but doesn't seem to be required.

    Proposal P: Spin is a bit late, square loop and avalanche are repeats from years past, altitude might be an issue for lower performance aircraft.



    Sportsman:

    Proposal A: 180 degree turn (figure 3) to 1 1/4 Spin will slow the flow of the sequence. I continue to oppose 1 1/4 spins in Sportsman.

    Proposal C: Good flow, requires thought to center the performance, early spin, good energy throughout.

    Proposal D: similar to C, but energy flow is better in C and vertical figures/rolls are earlier in C, providing a greater altitude cushion for those figures.

    Proposal E: again, C flows better and is more balanced.

  7. #17

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Fruita, CO
    Posts
    16
    First of all, thanks to everyone who has contributed time and effort to creating the Proposed Knowns and Rule Changes.


    Sportsman Sequences
    I am opposed to the 1/2-Cuban with a 2x4 roll (Proposals C and E) for safety reasons. In a 7KCAB, it is nearly impossible to execute a vanilla 1/2-Cuban without exceeding Vne. The 2x4 roll guarantees an overspeed.


    Intermediate Sequences
    I'm opposed to Proposal C Figure 2: an inverted 45 downline followed by a 7/8 loop. This is a real energy-burner, and again raises the possibility of an overspeed. In Proposal F, the roller/90-turn/Immelman combo (Figs 10, 11, 12) is going to be difficult if not impossible for aircraft like the 8KCAB and Great Lakes. On paper, Proposal H looks like it will consume a lot of energy, and may not be practical for aircraft with moderate performance. Proposals L and P look good.


    Rule Changes
    12-1: Abstain. Pros: As stated in the Rationale. Cons: Makes the rule book more complex in return for a marginal benefit.
    12-4: Support.
    12-5: Support. Simpler is gooder.
    12-6: Support. Although the smallest aircraft can be difficult to see at 4000' AGL, I believe this change promotes safety and inclusiveness.
    12-7: Support.
    12-8: Abstain. I don't know how BRS stacks up against a personal parachute -- if it's the same or better, then fine. I imagine that it would be difficult to squeeze into -- or get out of! -- some LSAs while wearing a conventional chute.
    12-9: Support, with Jim Ward's well-articulated proviso regarding randomization.
    12-10: Support. Unfortunately the number of pilots who qualify under this new rule can probably be counted on one hand -- and the number of contests that offer a 4-minute Free is also pretty darned small. How about opening up the 4-minute to all Advanced pilots with a 200m floor, and Unlimited pilots with a 100m floor? Or perhaps a 200m floor for all.
    12-11: Oppose. Again, I'm with Jim Ward on this one, and would prefer to see Rule 5.2.2 eliminated altogether. Score has very little to do with it. I've seen many flights that were sloppy but safe, and I've seen accomplished competitors sent home for scaring the crap out of the judges. And while we're at it, 5.2.2 excuses competitors for flying in the wrong direction but doesn't provide any guidance on how zeroed figures should or shouldn't figure into the 75% cut-off.
    12-12: Support.
    12-13: Oppose. As a Judges School instructor, I am regularly asked why judges must make up their own criteria for downgrading imperfect radii. I say that much as we'd all love a simple and consistent set of criteria, there are a great many ways to screw up a radius! Using the first 1/4 radius as the standard is problematic because 1) it assumes that the first 1/4 radius is perfect, and 2) we must also grade 1/8 radii (i.e., 45-degree attitude changes). Flat spots, as Jim Ward pointed out, are another potential defect, as are "segmented" radii. It would be great to eliminate this glaring exception to our otherwise objective rules, but this proposal just doesn't go far enough. Nor am I sure that we'd have a workable set of rules if we specified deductions for all the possible faults.
    12-14: Support.

  8. #18

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    5

    Sportsman

    Sorry, I meant Sportsman "D".

    Thanks

  9. #19

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    3

    Goggles

    Hello All

    12-1 I support. Bringing the advanced box into alignment with CIVA is beneficial not only for the team members or aspiring members. As for the energy issue. They seem to do just fine without the box increase but it would benefit them also.

    12-2 I dont support. The fact is the current rule places no real hardship on individuals getting the required # of assists.

    12-5 I support

    12-6 I Do not support. Haven't seen a problem with this. Have seen a decathlon or a great lakes dominate sportsman for several years though. The idea of 500' being some increase in the safety factor is a falsehood. This assumes that the hammer or the spin is in the beginning of the sequence allowing the time and vertical space to effect and appropriate response and recovery.

    12-7 I do not support. Many choose to fly Sportsman as their introductory level. Complicating the issue for these people only adds a layer of stress to them. In sportsman an accomplished competitor can design their own free. They should be encouraged to do so, if they are seeking more variety.

    12-8 I do not support. If in the event of some unknown structural event that hampers or incapacitates the BRS ability to deploy then what???

    12-9 on the fence... frankly there are a possibility that an individual could "control" the start order. If the process is random at the registrars level the adjustments are made for shared airplanes or safety pilot duties that is whats going on now. Having been wind dummy at one contest for all 3 flights makes a person wonder.

    12-10 DO NOT SUPPORT. First off there is no rationale for the rule change so why do it? I suspect that an individual who is competitive in advanced and a 250' card could also fly unlimited and therefore should just move up. Secondly We could end up with individuals who have cards, move up to advanced just to fly the 4 minute. Know we are going to allow a person who just last year flew a 1200' floor, start pushing down to 328'. Not a recipe for safety in my eyes and we ALL have lost too many friends. This is an aerobatic competition not an air show and should remain as such.

    12-11 DO NOT SUPPORT. We have all had a bad flight, but now we are going to send a person home or down because they had a bad flight. I know of several highly accomplished competitors that would have been sent because they changed a couple of figures in there free and didn't up date their sequence card to match the paper work submitted.

    12-12 Support

    12-13 Do Not Support. If the judge apply's his criteria objectively and consistently then his scores will reflect the quality of the figure.

    12-14 Support

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Winfield, KS
    Posts
    5
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Johnson View Post
    I would suggest picking Sportsman Power Proposal C. The other proposed sequences have either two 45 degree lines on the same line, or have a 45 degree up line on a downwind line. Both of these situations will cause Sportsman pilots to work harder to stay in the box or take an out. The C sequence does not have either of the above flaws, and will allow Sportsman pilots to better concentrate on flying good figures without worrying as much about outs. The 2011 Sportsman Known had a 1/2 cuban 8, followed by a pull humpty, and then a reverse 1/2 Cuban 8. This combination of figures was on the downwind line, which required the pilots to decide if they would take an out or a break. At the Sportsman level, pilots should not have this added burden, which does occur in the other proposed Sportsman sequences.
    Steve Johnson
    IAC 20081
    IAC Safety Chair

    I would agree with Steve, the downwind 45 adds an unnecessary difficulty at the Sportsman level, proposal C for Sportsman Power looks best

    Tony Johnstone IAC 16578

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •