A good sized group of us here in the Southwest just attended the first Advanced Judging Seminar put on by the IMAC leadership. All our "Thanks" to Anna Wood for putting this great seminar together. It was a great chance for a group of experienced judges and pilots to get together with some experts and the judging guide and get things straight. Several of those who attended are active here on RCU (Aresti2004, quist, badarkstar, jelaird).

Snaps and spins were discussed for about an hour. The IMAC judging guide is pretty specific on what the required elements are. There are many judges that have their own criteria and are judging you incorrectly.

Here's the jist of the spin. It MUST stall. A stall was defined as simultaneous movement in roll, pitch, and yaw. Beyond that, it's just a discussion on downgrades and zeroes.

Many judges would zero a spin if the nose didn't drop first to prove that you stalled. They are wrong. The perfect entry has the nose dropping, one wing dropping, and the plane yawing all at the same time. You are correct that a snap entry is a zero. That's pretty obvious because one wing raises up over the top instead of one wing dropping as the nose drops. If the rotation is a spiral instead of a stalled autorotation, that's also a zero. The downgrades are all found in the judging guide.

There was a long discussion on snaps. The actual criteria requires the nose of the airplane to displace from the FLIGHT PATH. There is no criteria on how much it must displace. It is also acceptable for the nose to displace from the flight path at the same time that the autorotation occurs. I've seen lots of zeroes from judges that want to see the nose break first. Again, they're wrong. Just as with the spin there are specific things that are downgraded on this manuever, along with the general downgrades.

The bottom line is, read the judging guide. As Aresti2004 has pointed out many times, it and other great references are available on the IMAC website.

Learn the criteria correctly, and encourage all pilots and especially judges to learn them. Too many judges are just doing what they think is right, or what someone else told them was right.

Best of luck to everyone this contest season!!

Dean Bird
Sun Valley Fliers
Phoenix, AZ