Welcome to the 2016 AAC Regulations
Before we begin, thanks go out to Greg McConnell, Trent Stewart, Peter Townsend, and AAC president David Clemence for taking the time to go through the regulations from top to bottom, and update them to our current practices, and CIVA’s standards. If you’ve ever sat down to read the regulations from front to back, you’ll understand that this can be a very mind numbing process.
For 2016, the basic structure and conduct of competitions hasn’t changed, however Intermediate (CIVA), Advanced and Unlimited pilots (the CIVA Categories), will notice a change from the previous year’s formats. For the other categories, there has been no change to the structure of your competition.
With CIVA’s change in format to include the Free Known, and three Free Unknowns, there was much discussion between the Regulations Committee and pilots as to the best way to move forward. To those who took the time to share their ideas, thank you and we appreciate your time. Early on the decision was made to try and stay with CIVA as much as possible, as we wanted to give as much consistency as we could to those pilots looking to compete in world competitions. We adapted the concept of the Free Known without much discussion as from an administrative perspective there will be almost no change from last year’s know.
Much of the discussions however centred around the Free Unknown concept, and how to reduce the administrative burden, and make it as fair as possible for the pilots. The decision was made to run with three free unknown sequences, however we have made provision in 2.60.7 of the Regulations for the Contest Jury to fly a Chief Judge designed Unknown for one or more of the programme’s. This decision was done to allow some flexibility in the program for chapters wanting to run their competitions over two or three days, but still challenge the pilots.
The next challenge was how to ensure a fair competition for all the pilots when selecting figures for a Free Unknown. One of the issues that has raised its head in the past is when there’s been 3 competitors in a category, and each competitor takes it in turn to submit a figure, if two of the competitors train together, it could result in 6 or 7 figures out of 10 that two of the competitors have flown before. We believed this wasn’t really fair on the third competitor, and wasn’t really an “unknown†for the other two.
This was why last year, we moved towards each competitor selecting one figure (as per CIVA), and the rest of the figures being designed by the Contest Jury and Chief Judge. Despite the success of the Nationals last year, one of the items of feedback I received was that the Contest Jury figures were unrealistic, and in some instances stupid. This led to our change in the regulations this year where we will be giving the option back to the pilots. In the interests of keeping the selection of figures fair, as 2.60.3 and 2.60.4 explain, each competitor will submit one figure. If there are less than 10 competitors, then the competitors will then take turns selecting the remaining figures for the unknown from a Library of figures.
This compromise will still create an unknown sequence, but will give the competitors more say as to the realism of the sequence. As the Australian CJ, I am in the process of composing this library of figures for all of the categories and each competition so as to reduce the administrative burden on CJ’s at the competition. I’ll send the library out to the applicable CJ’s before the competition, and they will utilise them at the competition with the competitors.
Some concern’s have already be conveyed regarding the origin of the figures and I am happy to share my process of how the library of figures are being constructed. I am utilising sequences from the last 10 years in the applicable categories to find figures meeting the requirements for the unknown. Each library for a particular competition will have a wide variety of figures and K values all meeting the CIVA Section 6, Appendix A requirements and will contain between 150 to 200 figures. At the competition, 20 figures will be selected at random from the library. From these 20 figures, the competitors will then have the option to select the remaining figures needed for the program. We will be trialling this at the Victorian Championships next month, and I feel that this process will completely eliminate any bias, and make it as fair as we can for everybody.
For Entry, Graduate, Sportsman and Intermediate (Aus), there has been no change to your program. For Intermediate (Aus), we have changed the regulations so as to not reference CIVA section 6. Everything you need to know, from Free sequence requirements, to how the Unknown will work is in 2.59 and 2.61 of the regulations. This has been a copy and paste from the CIVA regulations, however it will make your life easier having to only reference one document. We have also included Appendix 2.3b which lists all of the potential unknown figures that you could be given.
Other changes to the regulations include:
– Creating a new Australian Chief Judge Position (Appendix 1.5)
– Removal of the State and National Judge References. We are going with just one type of Judge now, and still moving towards the dedicated judges concept that was seen at the 2015 Nationals.
– Separating the Administrative positions of Contest Secretary and Chief Scorer. This was done as often two separate people have done this in past competitions.
– More oversite of judging standards by the Australian Chief Judge, with minimum Judges Performance Index (JPI) standards. This will aid the training of judges and consistency at competitions.
– Pilot eligibility (2.15.6) – As the Student Pilot’s License no longer exists, the minimum requirement now is for a Recreational Pilots License before a competitor will be permitted to compete.
– Inclusion of the new Forms L and R for use at competitions.
– All Supplementary Rules (2.18) for state or national championships need to be approved by the National Committee. This was done to try and give more consistency for competitors between championships. State chapters, can still run with supplementary rules, but they need to have a reason to move away from the regulations.
Overall I think these regulations will help to streamline competitions and give a consistent, fair playing field for everyone. If you find something in the regulations you don’t think is correct, or needs to be change, please email myself (jeremy@skythrills.com.au) or speak with one of your local National committee members. Minor changes to the regulations may be made throughout the year, but we’ll let everyone know when this is the case. The 2016 regulations will be available on the AAC website over the next few days, but in the mean time, a copy can be downloaded from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/307ugmzcdkfyu48/AAC%20Regulations%202016%20-%20Complete.pdf?dl=0
Happy reading.
Victorian State Championships
Just a quick update for the CIVA competitors intending to compete at the upcoming Victorian State Championships. Given the absence of the new 2016 CIVA regulations, we will be running under the old 2015 Regulations with the following changes. The Free Known Program 1 sequences will need to be designed in accordance with 4.3.3.6 of the 2015 RIVA regulations, and the checklist available on the AAC website (http://wp.aerobaticsaustralia.com.au/competitions/sequences/).
Please also provide a copy of this checklist signed by a judge when you register at the championships. I am happy to check and sign these checklists and will be available in Tocumwal for a few days before the championships.
We will run 3 Free Unknown Programs consisting of 10 figures (and 4 additional linkers) with the following K limitations:
Intermediate (CIVA)
Program 2: 12 min – 20 max K
Program 3: 12 min – 25 max K
Program 4: 12 min – 30 max K
Advanced:
Program 2: 15 min – 30 max K
Program 3: 15 min – 35 max K
Program 4: 15 min – 40 max K
Unlimited:
Program 2: 22 min – no max K
Program 3: 22 min – no max K
Program 4: 22 min – no max K
This will be in the same format as the new 2016 CIVA regulations when they are published.
I look forward to seeing you all in Tocumwal, and at various competitions throughout the year. Until then, fly safe, have fun and good luck.
Jeremy Miller
Vice President
Australian Aerobatic Club
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