Fractured Axel

RoyReed wrote:

There are no penalties for crashing. You just lose time.

Oh yeah - I meant to ask - how long d'you have - the length of a song?

Also, do you have to start/finish on the ground, or is it a flying start?

jimothy wrote:

Oh yeah - I meant to ask - how long d'you have - the length of a song?

It's a total of three minutes, with each flyer taking three 30 second turns. You get a ten second warning and a 5,4,3,2,1 countdown, when you should land the kite at the end of each turn, so start and finish on the ground.

gentle crash and a hurried landing?

does such a thing as a gentle crash exist, I believe that a pirhouetting landing from tip wrap doesnt count as a a crash

A pirhouetting landing from tip wrap is a level 5 trick as scored by www.tricksparty.com and is right up there with a crazy-copter and a backspin-cascade.

but is the kite allowed to land on its nose though??

Yes, but just the nose. You have to balance it there without the LE touching, then flick it into a rising fade to take off again.

Oh is that all, no probs then. count me in

After you forced me and the boys to do all that team flying malarky, next time I see you I'm gonna teach you how to do a Jacob's Ladder at the very least....

Hey Jim, I'm getting there, spent an hour or two on Rendondo beach today getting 3 out of 4 axels to work. They weren't pretty but they were axels. Anytime you want to show me something more I'll give it a go.

Keith[/b]

The best set of "rules" for the trick-out can be found at:
http://www.andywardley.com/kites/freest ... ition.html

It should be noted that almost all of the competitions last year were peer-judged, ie all non-flying competitors judged the flying ones. This is not ideal, but trick-out judges are rare (most of them want to compete!).

With regard to the novice competition, I am flexible about how to open it up to more flyers. I see no reason at all to stop us flying qualification rounds of the Trick-Out away from the arena. However, whilst the music is somewhat incidental, it does set the scene and the tempo, and if I am competing I would prefer to have the music on. It should be noted that we have not yet tried a Trick-Out without music, and I really do not know if it would work or not.

Also, with regard to knock-outs, where possible we stage a "fly-off" where the losing flyers fly against each other. So you usually get two chances to try and get into the quarter finals. After that it is a pure knock-out competition.

I can see the merit in the Novice competition being on the basis of set tricks, but if any novice looked at the "freestyle" Trick-Out versus a "set-trick" Trick-Out, I think that they would choose the freestyle any day. As long as you are matched against flyers of similar ability.

For the classes of competition, I am heading toward the following;

- Novice
- Intermediate/Fun flyer
- Open

Obviously Open would be for the known and serious competitive trick flyers. I would encourage the likes of Andy S, Mobius Flix and Martin D into the Intermediate competition, and the newbie flyers into the Novice competition.

Unfortunately I cannot make Swindon, or it might have been a round of the Trick-Out Nationals. However, if you want to stage your own competition then why not? If there is anybody attending Rougham, then you can see how it works there.

I still lament the loss of the Trickster, but it seems we must move on... roll on winter

Anyway... I like the idea of a round robin, but the time issue is a problem. How about an inverse pyramid for the losers of each round? I realise that image is crystal clear in my mind and probably makes no sense to anyone else... what I mean is that you have a knockout for the losers from the first round. Will take less time and mean that those out first time will get more chance to fly.

Are we really going to get enough trick flyers to run three classes of competition??

Anyway... I'm up for it. Bring it on.

i like the idea of trick classes, with winners getting places in comps further up the abilites ladder.
im not too keen on any set trick list, they end up making the comp less flowing, when all you want to do is go with it.

Are we really going to get enough trick flyers to run three classes of competition??

Therein lies the problem. New competitors are worried about being eliminated if they compete against more experienced flyers. However, in order to encourage flyers into the competition, they have to pitted against flyers of similar ability. Likewise, I very much doubt that the likes of Andy S would like to come up against Sascha in round one. I certainly wouldn't.

Perhaps the compromise is to run two competitions; fun and open; and to group the flyers according to their preferred level within each competition. So flyers of similar ability would qualify against each other, and then move forward to the quarters and the semis. Depending upon the number of competitors in each stream, this could result in a raw novice making it as far as the final.

The streams could be as follows;

Fun competition;
Novice flyer
Intermediate flyer

Open competition;
Advanced flyer
Master flyer

I think that this is best balance of fairness versus practicality that I can come up with.

Comments please?

Andy,

Yes, let's go for it.

Keith

The first trick competition is at Rougham on Sunday May 16th. Qualifying rounds will probably be just before or after lunch. See you all there, maybe.

I'll be there, Andy. Let me know if you need any help.