226 Pecan Street
Deland FL 32724
tel: (386) 801-0804
© 2003 - 2024
All Rights Reserved
The competition will be easier for the teams this year for one very simple reason. The jump plane for the 4-way competition is a Twin Otter this time, which will make a world of a difference for the exit work.
The audience may remember that the teams had to deal with a helicopter, a Bell 212, in January 2010. Some teams tried to launch the complete first formations of the sequences, some did not. Arizona Airspeed used certain exit formations to get to the first point, such as a Side Body (P) or a Stairstep Diamond (B).
NMP-PCH Hayabusa was close but lost too many points in the judging room, several due to video trouble. It began in Round 1 where Hayabusa lost two points since team videographer Danny Jacobs could not film his team. His equipment had not arrived in Dubai when the competition began.
Pilon, a freeflyer from Spain who was recommended for the camera work, had agreed to do the Hayabusa job. Of course, he needed to get used to the exit from the Bell 212 helicopter and the team procedures and had only Round 1 to go to school. It was no big surprise that the judges deducted two points due to the camera angle in Round 1. Hayabusa had the same strategy as Airspeed and was launching a Side Body as the exit formation.
Airspeed was granted a re-jump for Round 3, and the Belgian team was not too happy about that. Hayabusa complained that a protest should be filed before a team knows the score, even though there is no rule that requires such a procedure: "If you are feeling unhappy with the exit, you protest immediately and not after knowing the score!"
Hayabusa members argued that Airspeed could have ignored the issue, as other teams were dealing with the same situation, including the Belgian top contender. However, this is all history, and chances are little that there could be similar problems with the aircraft this year.
There was no eletronic judging system in Dubai. Rumor was that there are five judges in a room with a stopwatch. The scores were only posted on the original scoresheet somewhere at the competition site.
This will be different tomorrow. The SouthAfrican InTime scoring system will be used in Dubai, and Chief Judge for all events, Dr. Rainer "Exi" Hoenle from Germany, will have a more professional judging environment this year.