Keith,

If we reach out for it, there is a template in place to emulate that would ensure a cool and successful event. However I'm not sure we would have committment. Gaining committment to such and event and committment to a new ethos and beginning-point is something that needs a bit of time to develop or to spread the word if nothing else. We need a whole bunch of people willing to drive somehwere and get together for the purposes of judging excellence. We need folks to take judging as serious as they do flying. A few people definately take judging seriously, but many do not. Mostly, there are two judging efforts for a single flight, so there is twice the judging work on display as piloting. Juding & contest scoring is a huge work effort - far more thant the piloting going on. We need a lot of things to happen, as well as some "tools" or rules to help the situation.

For the most part, we have unhurried and non-complex sequences (even FAI). I do not think the sequences overload the judge who is ready for task. We only fly "known" sequences. As a comparison, IMAC changes all class sequences yearly, and each local contest has unknowns. Thus, judges need to be flexible. To aid judging unknowns, we have someone calling aresti elements for the judges. There is no excuse for the judges - judges are expected to get it "right" each time, Sportsman through Unlimited regardless of the unknown factor. A lot of these pilots can go through an unknown sequence at 70-90% the same efficiency they do the knowns. So as a judge, you must "super-concentrate" to catch stuff (... and we still mis somethings).

I only say this to show that being flexible as a judge, and applying downgrades even to "new" sequences, is something that is being done quite a bit. Thus, we should as precision aerobatic pilots/judges, be even more skilled and adept at judging our patterns, which do not change so often, and have no unknowns.

Thanks,
Jim