It depends on the severity of the longer legs and/or the variances in the radii of the half loops. When it comes to the length of the legs or "box sides" you establish that length by how far you go past yourself before beginning the maneuver, and also the necessary radius you need to maintain throughout the loops. The downgrade is based on a percentage of how far off you are in each leg (I think), but one goofup can cause downgrades on the rest of the maneuver. Case in point: Let's say you fly 50 feet past yourself before pulling up. You have now established a necessary loop height (diameter) of 100 feet. Now let's say instead of climbing 100 feet during the loop, you top out 25 feet higher but the loop was "perfect" in that you maintaned a constant radius. You fly a perfect straight and level inverted flight 100 feet, and perform another perfect half-loop, exiting at the exact altitude at which you entered. Now, I'm just getting back into this, so I don't know what all the current standards are, but someone told me the point downgrades have something to do with the percentage you are off. Well, in this case you were 25% off in the height of the maneuver, and this should earn a 7.5. Keep in mind, that in this instance even though the loops were "perfect" they had a larger radii than were established when you began your pull-up. Now, 25 feet off isn't that easily noticable to the judge, and given everything else being perfect, it will probably score higher. The problem is, once you've completed that first half loop, your max score is established because you have already shown exactly how the other half of the maneuver should look. The best scores on this maneuver are earned by those who don't attempt to correct what has already been done wrong. You can disguse slight altitude problems by just holding what you've got and making it as pretty as you can with what you've got. If you try to gain or lose altitude while inverted, that's just going to cause another downgrade by not flying the inverted part level. Your question about a perfect box with shotty loop ends would be difficult to do (not judge, but actually do) because the box height is determined by the loop. But if this were to actually happen I believe it is a one-point downgrade for not having a constant radius to each of the loop, 2 points for more severe. I hope this helps, and I hope I'm right about the downgrades. Now that I think about it... check this out, it can answer all these questions a hell of a lot better than I can: [link=http://www.nsrca.org/competition/judging/guidelines.htm]NSRCA Judging Guidelines[/link]