OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS I HAVE LISTENED TO MANY COMMENTS ABOUT THE NATS AND 99 PERCENT OF THEM ARE...WHAT A GREAT JOB AND WHAT A GREATTIMEW WAS HAD BY THOSE WHO ATTENDED AND THOSE OF US WHO WERE FOLLOWING THE NATS THROUGH THE FANTASTIC REPORTING AND PICS....THE ONLY NEGATIVE WAS THAT THE JUDGING WAS NOT FAIR.....TO YOU GUYS...SHAME ON YOU.....THE VOLUNTEERS SIT FOR HOURS ON END FOCUSING ON AND GIVING T IT THEIR BEST SHOT WHILE YOU FLY YOUR ONE OR TWO FLIGHT AND GET TO RETIRE TO YOUR CHILLING SPOT...THESE GUYS GIVE UNSELFISHLY AND YOU COMPLAIN...I CHALLENGE YOU TO GET OUT THERE AND GET TO CLASS AND LEARN WHAT THEY ARE DOING AND NOT JUST SIT ON THE SIDELINE AND COMPLAIN....DON ..PHIL AND THE JUDGES ...YOU GUYS DESERVE THE BENNET CUP FOR YOU PERFORMANCE..YOU ARE ALL 10S IN MY BOOK.....BRUCE"OUTLAW POPS" RANSOME

The Nats were awesome and I had a great time judging.

Not once did I hear anything about the judging being unfair and never got anything but good feedback from Don or any of the exec about it. For each round you had judges from different regions with no vested interests other than applying the rules to deduct all the errors we saw. We stayed in a separate hotel, we barely talked to the pilots (man I would have loved to meet and greet with more people, I held myself to hello and hi my name is all weekend... it sucked as I came 2,200 miles and will not get a lot of opportunities to meet these guys.)

Dedicated, trained judges all from different regions all carefully put into the judging matrix... It could not have been any more fair IMO.

Most of us were RD's or ARD's who have attended and in most cases hosted judging seminars. Our mission was to call EVERYTHING we clearly saw. It was brutal given the wind. I felt bad many times watching the pilots struggle but that never changed any scores. Our mission was to deduct the maximum points allowed and given the rules we have there is a TON of room for error.

All of the pilots were amazing... many times we commented to each other that we ourselves would struggle as pilots to even fly in those conditions. To me the scores show that the pilots were AMAZING. It is so easy to loose points when you accurately apply all the rules and when you look at those score sheets there are a lot of good scores.

When you sit back and spectate the flights look near perfect, when you scrutinize and focus as a judge you see every little thing because that’s your job. Go to a seminar - we have a lot of criteria and IMAC is very hard.

Anyway - it was an AWESOME event, great people and great flying. I met many of the folks I have been emailing with and just had a great time. I would do it again in a heartbeat and I can only hope to experience the same level of judging myself some time – we took our jobs VERY seriously and did the absolute best we could just like the pilots. These may be the best most accurate scores you get so take them and use them to work on stuff.

I remember a lot of the flights I judged and I am more than willing to give feedback to anyone who wants to know why they got deuctions... but my memory will only hold out so long :)

I also put comments on my sheets for 80% of the 0's (there were not many.)

The #1 deduction for rollers was pauses and change in roll rate. That killed a lot of potentially great scores... and you could see it was so hard in the wind but the rules are very clear. In many cases pilots tried to make the roller round at the cost of pauses and speeding up/slowing down the roll... but the number of pauses and changes killed the score far more than an egg shaped circle would have. I would have crashed even trying to do a roller in those gusts... but that would be my #1 feedback for unlimited for sure.

For all classes the 2 most frequent deductions I made were for unequal line segments (80% of the manuvers for everyone had these) and 45 lines. Just about everyone could improve 15% to 20% on fixing the line segments alone. The thing is they were not close calls either - they were very, very obvious. Almost every 8 or better could have been a 10... no joke.

I hope that helps someone out there... I sure know what I am working on this season :)

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE CHRIS...CALLING LIKE YOU SEE IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO IT...IT DOES NOT HELP ANYONE TO BE LENIENT...HOW ARE WE TO IMPROVE ON THINGS IF WE GO AT IT WITH A LASAE-FAIR ATTITUDE...I THINK JUDGING AT AN IMAC CONTEST FAIRLY IS ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULTJOBS I HAVE DONE AND YET HIGHLY REWARDING WHEN YOU SEE IT FLOWN NEAR PERFECT..YOU CAN LOOK BACK AND SAY WOW NOW THATS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE....THE SAMLL PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE THAT CRY WOLF JUST NEED EDUCATION WHICH CAN ONLY BE ENHANCED BY GOING TO ONE OF THE SEMINARS ON JUDGING THAT HAVE BEEN PUT ON IN THE RECENT PAST..I HAVE SEEN IMAC GROW AND IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME AND THE PILOTS AS WELL AS THE JUDGES AND THE ADMINISTRATION ARE TOP DRAWER..SIMPLY THE BEST...POPS

You know I spent a load of time, like everyone else did, in the chair and most of that time was judging a 5 to 6 hour unlimited known round, not to mention scribing for Unlimited as well as all the other classes at both sites. I basically judged all classes at least once. Sitting here, I can count at least 36 hours (out of a possible 96) spent in the chair either judging or scribing. Not to mention helping to drive people from one flying site to another.

I had heard there was one debate over a score being changed and that was all. My understanding that is was handled professionally by the CD's

I cannot agree more with all that Chris Hammond said, Myself, Chris Hammond and Bobby Folsom spent loads of time together over the 4 days and I got to know them fairly well and learned to respect them even more than I had already. These guys as well all of the other judges put their heart and soul into this event as well as I did. I spent a lot of time the week before going through the Red Book just to make sure I was up on everything, went to two different judging seminars this year alone, not to mention the multiple primers I had attended or put on myself so I felt up to the task.

A lot of times after the round was finished, our scribes, which were typically other judges taking a break, would sit with us and we would discuss what we saw and pretty soon came to the conclusion that we would have been very close to what the score came out to be. I myself, would mention why I was deducting points when I could to the scribe so that they could make notes and I know most did and all agreed, not once did a scribe say anything to me to try to change my score

I am comfortable with every score I gave. Given the wind and weather conditions. I even witnessed several pilots deal with ACS in a very positive way. I do not remember who it was but one pilot did one of the best Unlimited sequences I have ever judged. I can say one thing for certain, his sequence did not take up more than 1000 feet on the X axis at anytime and the roller was maybe double the length of the runway (approx 1500 feet) total distance out if even that much and he did not look rushed at all. This was done with a 40% Yak.

We even had more than two judges for the rounds on Thursday at both flight lines and this included pilots that did not make the final cut but stayed to help out.

Like Chris, I wish we would have had the time to talk to the pilots and we were allowed but it was not recommended. Non-competitor judging certainly worked well in this contest. Don did an excellent job trying to keep judges from judging people in their own regions. Was he always able to do it, no, but he did his best and they matrix worked well, we always knew where we were needed if not the night before, the next morning during breakfast.

As far as I am concerned, Phil, Don and every did one heck of a job putting on this show and I am proud that I was a part of it and would do it again in a heartbeat

BRIAN LUCKETT IS MY SON AND HE STATED TO ME THAT THIS WAS THE BEST JUDGING MATRIX THAT HE HAS SEEN IN ANY CONTEST..OBVIOUSLY YOU GUYS BROUGHT YOUR A GAME AS WELL...MY HAT IS OFF TO YOU AND ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DEVOTED UNSELFISHLY OF THEIR TIME AND EXPERIENCE TO MAKING THIS THE BEST NATS EVER....ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE ALL 10S..POPS

Bruce, Chris, , thks for your comments, and thoughts...we truly poured everything into this nats!!! The IMAC ORG. is blessed to have such a "Giving: NATS Team...From Sunup to sundown the Team worked non-stop!!!
I've learned that we can never please everyone, however anyone who was there, with eyes open, and participating, could clearly see that the Nats Team, along with each and every volunteer... brought there "A" Game.

To the 2009 NATS Team, Ladies and Gentlemen... Huge Props go out to you, along with a huge thanks to your families, for allowing you to come , and help take IMAC to the next level!
Fellow CD Phil, and Rhonda,Sharon Kent, & Brenda,Dave, Allan,Jerry,Roy, all scribes, all judges, and callers,and anyone that helped us........You made us all so very proud!!