Now that the season for flying is coming upon more of the regions, some thought we can all discuss and share.

Our rules state that a deduction of .5 for each 5 degrees will be imposed on the competitor in most all deviations.

Would anyone like to share their method of recognition of 5 degrees as a judge?

Kurtis

Kurtis, Hope you do not mind....

If I say to myself...self... that looks to be about 5 deg deviation...the pilot get the benefit of the doubt. If the pilot shows "about" 15 deg deviation, I deduct 1 point. It has to be a definite 5 deg to deduct .5 or 1/2 a point. Anything less than 5 deg is no deduction.

However seeing 5 deg deviation is merely a guess.

duplicate post. sorry

Let's put 5 degrees into perspective. If you fly a 600 foot line and are climbing at a 5 degree angle, the aircraft will gain 50 feet in altitude. Pretty darn tough to judge if you ask me!!! I have never nderstood why we try to judge in 5 degree increments, it's just too hard to see accurately. I spent 25 years racing sailboats trying to see small wind shifts so trust me when I say that I never met anyone that could detect 5 degrees. That is why the America's Cup sailors rely on laser distance measuring devices.
Doc

Good info!! Keep the replies coming. This is a learning tool so we all need to be aware of what 5 degrees is and share this information with others.

Thank you Kent for your reply, if you can think of any thing else to share as an aid to judge this area, please share.
James, Thank you. Although after this thread I hope you may find that judging 5 degrees will be easier for you.

Kurtis this is a good topic and I would love to get some pointers on this. I'm like Kent its a guess but I try to always guess the same. Gary

Kurtis, thank you for posting this topic....

personally I get very tired of the argument against sound scores being subjective....

while just about every criteria we judge is truly subjective.

Your 5 degrees is my 10, My 20 degrees is your 10 - as long as whatever it is, it is the same for everyone in that round - consistency

Posted By Curtis Cozier on 13 Mar 2010 10:39
Kurtis, thank you for posting this topic....

personally I get very tired of the argument against sound scores being subjective....

while just about every criteria we judge is truly subjective.

Thank You so much Curtis, Not intended to be a by product of sound but very eye opening!!!! I have always said that all is subjective, but I want people to maybe give an aproch they use to judge this area to get a better understanding of/and people getting more consistent. Just trying to improve the judging and awarness. Please anyone that is willing, please share.
I will share my way of judging this area later.

"IMAC is only as good as the judging"
Kurtis

Call me dumb, I just figured out how to do a signature!!!!

OK,,,,,,,,, "Dumb"


Just picking !

Kurtis: I try not to see the 5 degree error. But instead to try to see it as "not quite" 10 degrees (and I can see 10 degrees). Anything 5 or over, but not quite 10 defaults to 5 in my mind. I use the same method to arrive at 15 degrees of error, just under 20 degrees defaults to 1.5 points off in my mind. I try not to go further than that for individual errors. I try to judge on hole numbers over 20 degrees of error in a single element. The reason I do this is: usually when a pilot is 20-30 degrees in error, he/she has errored on another axis also, or about to very soon, and I have to come up with an accurate score for that manuever fast so I can begin scoring the next manuever.
As IMAC pilots get better and better we see less of the 70 degree single axis error these days. I'd rather continue my learning skills in the 5, 10, 15 degree error market. I am challlenged to tell the difference between 50 degrees of error and 55 degrees of error. However, I've used my method of 5 degrees of error for the first 5 degrees and 15 degrees with some success these past few years.
I'd love to hear what method others use.
Dan,

Posted By Kurtis Waites on 13 Mar 2010 20:14

Posted By Curtis Cozier on 13 Mar 2010 10:39
Kurtis, thank you for posting this topic....

personally I get very tired of the argument against sound scores being subjective....

while just about every criteria we judge is truly subjective.

Thank You so much Curtis, Not intended to be a by product of sound but very eye opening!!!! I have always said that all is subjective, but I want people to maybe give an aproch they use to judge this area to get a better understanding of/and people getting more consistent. Just trying to improve the judging and awarness. Please anyone that is willing, please share.
I will share my way of judging this area later.

"IMAC is only as good as the judging"
Kurtis

I disagree with the subjectivity issue. We have strictly defined critera and definite deductions for when those are not met. Wether or not a judge sees it, the plane does it. So while I agree that the judge may not "catch" all of the mistakes and apply the proper deductions, that does not make it subjective, but rather perceptive. Subjective judging is where you watch a manuever and then pull a number out of your backside based on how well you "feel" the pilot performed. (ACS comes to mind) Sorry I couldn't resist.
I am going to do some homework, but I believe 5 degrees may be more apparent than some may think. To be continued....

IF YOU CAN SEE THE FLASH OF THE BLING IT IS A .5 POINT DINGjust wanted to make sure we did not get overly sensitive about this space as well...pops

Here are a couple of drawings of what 5 degrees looks like. I think sometimes we ding too hard thinking 5 is almost undetectable so it must have been at least 10 degrees. One thing that will earn a half point ding from me is if I can't see the underside of the wing as the plane flies by. ie dipped inboard wing. And that happens a lot!

I will also post some other angles.

Kevin

10 degrees

Hey Kevin...those are good examples...

It is not often, though, that we see the aircraft in the configuration of "head-on"..... Maybe if you could set it up to show further to the right or left of center it would REALLY have a high impact on us all...
Wayne

20 degrees

45 degrees

Posted By Wayne Matthews on 15 Mar 2010 17:53
Hey Kevin...those are good examples...

It is not often, though, that we see the aircraft in the configuration of "head-on"..... Maybe if you could set it up to show further to the right or left of center it would REALLY have a high impact on us all...
Wayne

Maybe if someone has access to a CAD program, that might be possible, but I don't have any idea how to do it.

Kevin, These are great views of angles on print but do you have an aid to 5 degrees diviation in real time? I would like to hear about any means of better accuracy while judging in real time of a flight. And as you pointed out earlier, there are set critiria for deductions but remember, perception is subjective. Subjective means "existing in the mind"/"arising from senses". So you see, we do have set criteria but it is still subjective to your perception of what degrees of diviation to deduct. I want to simplfy to the judge a means of standard to be used in real time to help with their perception. Perception means "intuitive judgement". Perceive-"to obtain knowledge of through the senses". So either way, we use our educated guess as to what 5 degrees deviation is because that is the only way we can.

Now I will share my method of trying to stay as accurate as possible in this area. As I do, remember that this is a tool and by no means a mathematical exact!!

As I have studied ways of judging I have learned that for every foot of length, 5 degrees will be about 1 inch.
So 600 feet will be about 600 inches.( devided by 12 would be 50 feet). So now a typical 40% airplane has about a 10' wingspan so from wingtip to wingtip would be 10" from level to account for 5 degrees. Anything less is no deduction. Now that I know this, another thing I use is the fuselage of the airplane. While most airplanes have a fuselage height about equal to the distance between the wingtips to be a 5 degree deveation. As the wingspan increases or decreases, so does the fuselage height. So what I look for is the wingtips to be within the height of the fuselage. Now the angle of view has a big factor of being able to observe this but I have found that if I use the fuselage as a guide, it really helps me with the angle or deviation for deduction.
I use the fuselage for the flight path also. Does the flight path deviation equal the fuselage height in a distance judgeable to see?

I have realized that 5 degrees is more than what I thought. We all can see a wing not level, but is it a 5 degree deviation. Same with flight path, we can all see a decending flight path, but is it 5 degrees. I know that at the Prattville feild where I fly, the runway is about 600', and to have a mantained flight path of 5 degrees the aircraft would drop or rise 50' (equal to a 5 story building) from one end to the other.
I am in no way trying to water down the judging, just some things I wanted to share and get others to share to give some awarness to 5 degrees. I hope more will share their method because the method I share may not work for everybody or anyone, but it works for me.
Kurtis

Subjective judging is where you watch a manuever and then pull a number out of your backside based on how well you "feel" the pilot performed. (ACS comes to mind) Sorry I couldn't resist.




Kevin, I believe that is called "Impressionable" judging.

Call it what you want, but here is the definition:

Adj. 1. subjective - taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias; "a subjective judgment"
nonsubjective, objective - undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena; "an objective appraisal"; "objective evidence"

We have observable phenomena and definitive criteria by which to deduct. Therefore we strive to be objective judges...hopefully.

Therefore we strive to be objective judges...hopefully.

Kevin I think most of the time that includes sound

Sound has no definitive, measurable critera by which to deduct.

Sorry Kurtis for getting off topic as this is an interesting subject and can offer insight into proper application of the rules. I like your method of judging 5 degrees. We can memorize what 5 degrees of bank looks like from head on or looking at the tail, but the hard part is when the plane is closer to being directly in front of us.
One big clue that can be used is which way the plane starts heading in a pull. Unless the pilot is on the rudder right away, if a wing is down, the plane will not track straight up initially.
I think the most difficult line for me to judge (and fly) is straight up directly in front of me when you cannot see the wing. It is very hard for me to tell if the plane is coming in or out.