SEN 2224 - 4 Dec 2016


Table of Contents - SEN 2224

  1. North American Cup
  2. Fixing the finals

The Toronto Free Flight Group
Presents the 2017
North American Cup
An FAI World & America's Cup & Team Championship
 

Dates: Wednesday, February 15th 2017 with Thursday February 16th as reserve day
Place:  Bissonette Mirage Field, Lost Hills, CA USA
Events: Individual F1A, F1B, F1C, F1Q & 3 Person Team F1A, B & C (Teams can be mixed nationalities)
Entry Fees:  $30.00 for F1A, F1B, F1C, F1Q – Team entry included in fee
Juniors free all events!
 
AMA liaison CD: Brian Van Nest
Co-Organizer: Peter Allnutt: 527 Philippine St, Taft CA USA +1(661) 763-5039
Organizer: Tony Mathews: 2 Tralee Street, Brampton, Ontario, Canada L6Z 2X4 +1(289) 316-2990
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
Wednesday February 15th
F1A/B/C/Q Round 1 8:00 am – 9:00 am.     Rnd 1: 240 sec max F1A/B/C 180 sec max F1Q
                   Round 2 9:00 am – 10:00 am
                   Round 3 10:00 am – 11:00 pm  180 sec all other rounds
                   Round 4 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
                   Round 5 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
 
F1A/B/C Fly-offs start earliest 3:30 pm to 6:00 p.m. Latest (weather permitting – or Sunrise Thursday morning)
Trophies for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place F1A, F1B & F1C & F1Q. Medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Teams.
Medals for top Junior in each event also! Champagne and snacks will be available Wednesday evening starting at 6:30 pm. Final awards ceremony will be after the final flyoffs.
(Sunrise for Feb 15th – 6:45 am Sunset – 5:41 pm)
 
Deviations from the FAI sporting code and special instructions:
Competitors MUST provide their own timekeepers. Fly-off Max times and start time will be decided on the day by the Jury depending on the weather.
Team scores will be decided by the total time of the 3 contestants including flyoff times (ie: not as per the sporting code).
 
Note: A Starting “area” will be utilized without pole positions (depending on entry numbers)
 
 Link to the pre entry form (Cut and paste it into your browser):
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQ-RhMmBjKprZZ8H91lK_Ucjqhn_2BDOek1TXpSwivQ0qvkw/viewform#start=invite
 
Entry fees to be paid on the field before Feb 15th (someone will be available to take entries on the field on Tuesday Feb 14th from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm) Note: it will be possible to pay for as many Fab Feb competitions as desired on the field starting Feb 10th 2017 

 

Fixing the USA  Finals

 


From: Aram Schlosberg


The current US Final’s double contest format has two glaring drawbacks:
(1) It does not guarantee flyoffs. Only two fliers maxed out on A's day-2 (SEN 2199) a.k.a. "making the team in 7 flights”.
(2) B’s day-2 5-minute flyoff was carried out in massive downdraft. The winner did 3:24 minutes and the combined winner placing 5th clocked 1:58 minutes (SEN 2198) a.k.a. "rolling the dice".
 
Instead, flyoffs should measure the performance of all fliers, irrespective whether they dropped one second or two minutes in the regular rounds. The 5-minute flyoff is redundant, given models’ performance and being held under non-neutral conditions. This leaves us with an early morning and late evening "capped flyoff" with a 6-minute cap for A and C, and a 7-minute cap for B. (The original idea was posted on SEN 2208.)
And in the case where more than two fliers maxed or no one reaches approximately 80% (corresponding to 6 minutes for B, 4:45 for A and C) the capped flyoff is reflown. (There are details such as an hour break after the early morning flyoff and flying 5 regular rounds, etc.)
A flier's score would be the sum of their regular rounds and flyoffs each day. This means that if one drops say 10 seconds in a regular round, there is still a chance of winning or placing well, but dropping say 30 seconds can't be overcome.
Keep in mind that the Finals are not a “regular” contest – designed to efficiently pick winners by using a "you drop – you’re out" formula. Instead, the Finals should test fliers under thermal (survival/piggybacking) and flyoffs (performance) conditions. Our current Final’s format overdoes the former, occasionally does the latter.
(We can only fix the future. One can write-in support for this approach – mandatory capped flyoffs – if you received a Final’s monkey survey. Responses are carefully read by the TSC.)  

 


Reminder :Fab Feb online entry form is available at:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQ-RhMmBjKprZZ8H91lK_Ucjqhn_2BDOek1TXpSwivQ0qvkw/viewform#start=invite
It lets you sign up for all the FAI events at the Kiwi Cup, Ike Winter Classic, North American Cup, California Cup and The MaxMen International.  Held at Lost Hills from 11 to 20 February 2017.
The Ike Winter Classic also has a lot of other AMA Free Flight events but advance sign up is not needed for those.  The online advance sign up will speed things up for everyone, particularly International visitors who need to do extra paperwork.
 
...............
Roger Morrell