wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Derek, you remind me so much of Mike Hester.......Are you sure you can't think of a few more descriptive names to call me that begin with the letter "b"? Also, I find it interesting that you also represent Futaba. Is there some kind of hidden connection or something more we should know about? Regards, Everette

rcpattern

My Feedback: (45)

Masters finalists,

Rick Byrd
Archie Stafford
Dave Snow
Tony Frackowiak
Chris Odom
Stephen Byrd
Glen Watson
Joe Walker

Don't know the FAI results. Been a great NATS, even though Rusty has been very short handed with many of the guys who normally work the NATS working the worlds.

Heading to dinner, then up early tomorrow to fly,

Arch

Derek.Koopowitz

Congratulations Archie! Good luck tomorrow!

Doug Cronkhite

My Feedback: (34)

Wow.. that looks like a tough Masters final group for sure.

Doug Cronkhite

My Feedback: (34)

Always the proverbial bucket of sunshine eh Everette? Is there ANYTHING you don't complain about?

wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Doug, Sure there are alot of things I don't complain about. I don't believe that it's asking too much for a timely update to the standings at this year's Pattern Nationals. Why does this have to be so difficult? Is our internal communication sytem that archaic or is it that no one cares? Think about it, other than Archie's much appreciated update, here we all sit waiting to hear some tidbit related to the biggest contest of the year. Perhaps it only matters to those that were fortunate enough to attend the Nats and compete. Other than that, I really don't have an answer.
I appreciate your concern, Everette

protectedpilot

Everette, if one guy, halfway around the country, caused you to quit the NSRCA; then I suggest your committment was less than minimal. Derek has done a tremendous amount for the NSRCA, and for pattern; both here and internationally. He is right; take stock here, you do NOT know how hard it is to put on a NATS. Rusty is running his first NATS, and doing darned well if it is still going and NO ONE in Muncie is complaining on RCU.

Be patient, we will get the scores. We just won't be first. And since we aren't entered, we shouldn't be. That place goes to the contestants.

Brian Clemmons

wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Brian, you are entitled to your opinion. Just because I don't happen to agree with either of you does not discount how I feel about this lack of timely communication and it certainly does not justify me being called a bully and a bigot. I suggest Derek might be well served to rethink his verbal attack because there are always consequences whether we like it or not. Regards, Everette

Don Szczur

My Feedback: (1)

Just happened to have this one for Advanced.

PFPP

rcpattern

My Feedback: (45)

Intermediate
1. Brian Strahan
2. Houston Schweitzer
3. Steven Insalaco
4. Brandon Sobolewski
5. Austin Wingo

Advanced:
1. Joseph Szczur
2. Scott McHarg
3. Victor Diaz
4. John Gayer
5. Larry Kauffman


I know this week has been nuts with lack of help from, so its been hard to get everything working. In Masters there were some growing pains with the new scoring system, but they got through them. Site 4 this year didn't even have a line chief or someone to run scores. Bobby Stout was site director and line chief both.

I want to say congrats to Austin Wingo. He was in a mid-air on Tuesday before the NATS and flew my backup Wind and ended up 5th with no time on the plane. There is some real talent in the lower classes.

Arch

Don Szczur

My Feedback: (1)

In case you are wondering the score of 23 on round 3 was awarded promptly after Joseph took off with one aileron connected, and. using excellent judgement landed immediately. His mechanic, that would be me, failed to connect one aileron before leaving for site 1 to get setup for my FAI flight. I got the phone call on site 1 shortly after his flight, telling me I owe him a set of Tech Decks as my punishment. Many thanks to Don Manson, Tony Claridge, Houston, Brian and JR and Larry for assisting Joseph at site 4 each afternoon.

PFPP, Proud Father of a Pattern Pilot....

Don Szczur

My Feedback: (1)

Unknowns for tomorrow. for Finalists.

It was great to chat with Richard Christopher, Matt Hoyland and his father from the UK. They are both in the finals (Matt will be flying the warmup flights tomorrow morning along with Bill Ahrens.

Doug Cronkhite

My Feedback: (34)

Wow! Way to go Joe! You must be one seriously proud father Don! That's awesome!

Don Szczur

My Feedback: (1)

FAI Finalists include Mark Leseburg, Chad Northeast, Don Szczur, and the other finalists from my memory so they may not be in order, include Dave Lockhart, Richard Christopher, AC Glenn, Mike Klein and Pete Collinson.

Chip was last seen racing Richard Landis' F-20 electric down the runway at site 3 going 100 miles an hour inverted at 6 inches off the deck... since his is not flying he has to keep occupied.

Fixed Wing

Here's the Master's Finalist Standings.

protectedpilot

Well, Everette, I really don't have a dog in this fight, but it was getting out of hand. IN all fairness, you were a bit sharp with Derek, who has only tried to help. Not at liberty to discuss the details, but trust me, Derek has always sought a peaceful solution, he's not trying to start something here, only to smooth the way. I, too, have been watching the results as closely as I could, but have been there many times and know Rusty is short handed as well as running his first NATS. And I realize they would NOT release results before the awards ceremony. Shucks, we do that at local contests!

You might cut Derek some slack, he didn't start it. You did when you suggested he was the one person who caused you to remove yourself from the NSRCA. Which is ridiculous, admit it So, let's all be friendly again, and enjoy the fact that we now have the Advanced and Intermediate results, and look forward to finding out what happens in Masters and FAI. I, too, wish I was there and am watching closely. Rick Byrd, David Snow, Tony Frackowiack, Glen Watson, Arch Stafford and Stephen Byrd, Joe Walker, Chris Odom..... it looks like a real fine contest in Masters! We will be the last to know..... I'll probably be at the field when the results are being read. But my phone will be close at hand!

Brian

protectedpilot

My apologies for omitting Riley Kissenberth from the Finalists. You beat me last year, but it was not spiteful when I left you out!

B

MFLOOD3800

My Feedback: (51)

If I was the moderator, I'd remove both of these guys from this thread. How embarrassing, my goodness, take the fight to IM's or something else.

MTK

Verne,

Did you mean ".....someone with LOWER normalized scores to rank lower (better)......"?

That is certainly possible if RANK is used alone. I've given some thought to this and a compromise between the two systems might be better. That is, a piece of the Prelim standing may come from RANK and a piece from SCORE, for large contests with multiple lines and judging sets that about guarantee unequal exposure.

FWIW-Judges are ranked by using an equal piece of RANK and SCORE for an assessment of Judging performance

The Final standings must only come from score (a common judging set)

Stuart Chale

"Borrowed" from the Canada WC/Nats blog
The FAI standings

Don Szczur

My Feedback: (1)

FAI and Masters Finals are underway. According to AC's calculation Dave Lockhard got the first round of F11. I scored a 1585 which puts me either 2nd or 3rd depending on Mark's score, according to AC (mr. calculator). Mark put in a solid Unknown 1 and everyone is flying well. Just as Joe Lachowski predicted, the NATS finals are a shoot-out. I just got done my known 2 which I was up 1st and put in a good flight but its in the judges hands now. Getting a bite to eat then learning the Unknown 2.

Later,

Don

wattsup

My Feedback: (1)

Good job Don and thanks for ALL the updates. Tell your son Joe I send my congratulations for a well deserved win in Advanced. Talk to you soon___Everette

VerneK

Matt,
Sorry for the confusion, I'm running on an empty tank after the marathon I just went through with Andrew.

In essence, Masters has two separate, 2 round contests going on each day during the preliminaries. Each contest (one on Site 1 and the other on Site 3) has a different set of judges and those judges only see the pilots on their site. On Site 1, after 2 rounds are flown, the scores from each round are normalized. There will be a winner for each of those 2 rounds who will have a normalized score of 1000 for each round. The same person may or may not win both of those rounds. If it's not the same person, two different people will have a normalized score of 1000. After normalizing occurs like it does at every local contest, someone will be 1st in Round 1, someone else will be 2nd, someone else will be 3rd, and so on. The same process will occur for Round 2 on Site 1. The key here is that all the pilots who fly on Site 1 did so in front of the same judges. Whoever was first in round 1 gets a 1, whoever was 2nd gets a 2, whoever was 3rd gets a 3 and so on. The same thing happens for Round 2 on Site 1.

In the meantime, the same thing is going on at Site 3 except that it's a different group (actually 2 groups) of pilots flying Rounds 1 and 2 in front of different judges than the ones that judged at Site 1. The winner of round 1 at Site 3 normalizes to 1000 and gets a 1, second gets a 2, 3rd gets a 3, and so on just like at Site 1.

Now lets say for example the pilot who was 2nd in Round 1, Site 1 flew a 980 and the pilot who was 2nd in Round 1 at Site 3 flew a 990. At the end of the day, they both have a 2 because they placed 2nd in their respective Round 1's. It's the only fair way to do it because we don't have permanent judges and equal judging exposure at the Nats is impossible. It's easy to see that at the end of 3 days, someone with higher normalized scores might not fare as well as someone else depending on where they flew, who they flew against, and what judges they flew in front of. This becomes particularly important to the 9 or so guys that have the misfortune of being grouped with someone who is clearly superior to everyone else at the Nats. Those guys have their scores normalized to the superior pilot on EVERY flight because they're in his group. Comparing their normalized scores against the normalized scores of someone else from an "easier" group is simply unfair. It's all about where you placed at your respective mini qualifying contest each day.

In a perfect world, each of the 4 groups would have an equally skilled pilot as the top seed of their respective groups. In spite of very careful seeding by contest management, it never quite works out which is the main reason every pilot has to keep one ranking score from each day. Otherwise, one could "avoid" the best pilot by throwing away the 2 rounds they flew against the superior pilot.

At the end of 3 days, everyone will have flown 2 rounds against everyone else outside of their respective group and 6 rounds against the other pilots within their own group. Each pilot will have their best ranking score from one of the two rounds they flew each day plus the single best ranking score that was a throwaway. In terms of ranking scores, lower is better than higher (1st or 1 is better than 2nd or 2). The CD determines how many finalists there will be which is anounced at the pilots meeting prior to the start of the Nats. This year, Rusty anounced that there would be 8 finalists. This year there was a tie for 8th place and it was decided by going back to the day those two pilots actually flew against each other and their respective throwaways were used to determine who was in and who was out. Had they both still been tied, there would have been 9 finalists as per the rules.

It's about as fair as you can get when the turnout and available judging pool requires the CD to go to the matrix system. There's a lot more to this system than I explained here which is detailed in the 2011 Competition Regulations.

I hope this clears it up. Everyone in Masters at that Nats caught on to it pretty quick and all I talked to liked it a lot. Of course, that was before the finalists were anounced....

Verne

Stuart Chale

Thanks for the update and absolutely, congratulations to Joseph.
Stuart C

patternflyer1

My Feedback: (11)

Everette,

I can tell you from my experience at the nats that I don't hardly ever have 1 minute to get on the internet, especially RCU. Do you understand how busy everyone, including the pilots are? It's an exhausting experience to say the least.
I'm sure you understand that the people who work for the NSRCA don't get paid right? They are not obligated to provide you or anyone else with scores for the nats. And generally, they are pilot's there just like everyone else. They are super busy trying to be a pilot, then add in the NSRCA meeting, all the other stuff that goes along with the job to do. Pictures, trying to get people's comments, stories for your articles. It ain't easy so perhaps you could take it a little easier on them for not updating you. The rest of us want to know the scores also. But we clearly have patience and understanding for what happens at the nats.

So many problems in the world, and I have to come read this thread and read your negativity again. This is the reason I don't get on RCU.

On to the nats. Thx to all who have taken their precious time to do any form of pics or updating. Some of us do appreciate it, and don't think you are a daily reporter.

Looks like some great competition in all classes has occurred, looking forward to hearing final results.

Chris