OmniSkore! coverage of the 2008 US Nationals.
Omnibits by Tim Wagner

0700
Good morning everyone, CF Sequential is underway bright and early this morning, and 4-way FS will be on call shortly for round 8. I'm grabbing the camera to chase down the CF teams for some team photos, be back shortly...

...well I got a few minutes before taking photos before CF round 2, so a visit to the mail bag. I have to say with all honesty that besides the free T-shirt, it's emails like this that  keep me coming back every year:

Thank you for the excellent and entertaining commentary of day; It's always a pleasure reading your tidbits...a pro many years over!

And this one:

As always, love the bits at Omniskore.com. It's become a habit - jump, take a break, read omniskore.com for all the other stuff going on, and prep the next round...Thanks for it

You are very welcome! I really do appreciate the feedback. Now back to work...

...CF Sequential has really grown on me over the years (and I have no idea how to get the stuff off). Aren't these the same 20 people who have been doing it the last 20 years? *thwack* OUCH hey I was just kidding...

Last night, out of curiosity, I looked up the winning teams' average in 4-way FS Open as far back as the OmniSkore archives go. 1997: Airspeed, 20.0. 1998: Airspeed, 21.3. 1999: Airspeed, 21.9. 2000: Airspeed, 21.3. 2001: Airspeed, 21.3. 2002: GK Gold, 21.8. 2003: DeLand Majik, 21.3. 2004: DeLand Majik, 21.1. 2005: DeLand Fire, 21.0 (who will ever forget that dramatic jump-off with GK Black!). 2006: DeLand Groove,  22.2. 2007: Airspeed, 25.3. So far this meet, Airspeed is at 24.3...more later...

...okay I got the CF Sequential team photos posted, and after one round AZ Frayed Knot is tied with Redline at 9...4-way FS round 8 is in the air...

0845
Both the Knights and Perris Fury posted a 21 on round 8, so the Knights keep a narrow one-point lead in the battle for the Open bronze medal...the Knights might have padded their lead a bit had they not over-shot a zig-zag > marquis...

...wow...Nice Maubeuge Holidays just posted a 21 with different engineering than the other teams, that was pretty slick looking jump, matching the high score so far...until just now, Airspeed posts a 24...

...I just got a wonderful email, and I just have to post this excerpt:

I'm starting to realize that i might have a slight addiction though, as the first thing i did when i walked into my office this morning was log on to my computer and bring up the bits page (just before checking the scores.)  no coffee, no e-mail, no nothing... just nationals... and tim.  ha ha ha!

It seems that I am being a bad influence on people at work, so perhaps it's time to retire...

...yesterday I forgot to thank Amy Chmelecki for helping me out with the team photos yesterday, so thank you Amy, you saved my butt on the hardest day of the meet...and thank you Larry Hill for taking such wonderful care of the judges, the breakfast/lunch/snack room as been well stocked and very delicious! And now, France Maubeuge ZC posts a 22 to finish up round 8 of Open, where Airspeed maintains a comfortable lead...

...in the Advanced class, CSC Rhythm XP is running away from the field, they look very good and should be cruising to a gold medal. Perhaps next year they will compete in the Open class as CSC Rhythm Vista? If they do, they will reengineer how they do all their block moves, and after a month of struggling they'll switch back to the original program...

1000
Intermediate round 8, leader R4 just posted a clean 15, nice jump. A little earlier, Focus 4 posted a very nice 12 right on the freeze frame. Like the Open class, the battle in Intermediate is wide open for the silver and bronze positions, with Air Force Encore and Slipstream in a tie. Air Force is up now, and they just put the 15th point on the freeze frame, let's see if it stands...no, they got a bust out the door and get a 14...okay here's Slipstream, they struggle early on the jump, and the judges are going to be thinking about this one for a while...and they post a 12, they had a bust in there so Air Force steps up into 2nd place with two jumps left...

...round 9 Open coming right up...looks like a medium to fast draw...there's going to be a small family feud here in the DZTV room while I root for the Golden Knights and Jan roots for Perris Fury...and here's the Knights up first GO TEAM...(for you newbies out there I'm a former GK team member)...they have a nice jump, a 22, followed by Airspeed's 24...and now Perris Fury... they draw a nice round of applause from the DZTV crowd, and they post a 21, so it's still a one-point lead for the Knights with one jump left...

From the mail bag:

Don’t you DARE think of retiring. Those of us that are stuck at the work we use to pay for our skydives during the Nationals depend on you to give us the feel of what it’s like to be there. We NEED you there to get our adrenaline fix through proxy. It’s not just the skydives, it’s the whole vibe. (now, where did I put that tourniquet?)

BTW, thanks very much for your coverage. My only request is that you try to give the lesser teams a bit more exposure. They need love too.

Thank you very much, and I completely agree that the lesser teams deserve more exposure. I will try. And as long as OmniSkore is in existence and hosts are willing to bear my exorbitant demands, I will endeavor to be here for you.

Yesterday I posted a compliment to one of the French video teams, but I think used the wrong team name. In any case, all of the French teams have good videographers here. So does the Russian Team.

I mentioned Focus 4's good jump a while ago, that's a "lesser" (what's a better word to use?) team that's good to cover: A pair of married couples from California, who've I've seen competing off and on over the years, and it's nice to see them here again.

1130
Round 9 Open is all done, and the Knights still have that one-point lead on Fury. Over in CF Sequential, AZ Frayed Knot has a 2-point lead on Redline. Ducking out for lunch...

Airspeed preps for round 10. Meanwhile...

...round 9 of Intermediate, Slipstream picked up a point on Air Force Encore and they will go into round 10 trailing by a single point...and Open round 10, the Knights just posted a 23, but there may have been an issue near the end, let's see what say ye judges...they are chewing hard on it...indeed, they had a double bust on a snowflake > offset near the end and they post a 21...AZ Divewerkz just drew a big round of applause from the hangar, posting a very nice looking 21...Perris Fury needs a 22 to force a jump-off or a 23 to win...

1300
Welcome, readers in Lesser Scandihoovia and the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople have sent nice emails...here's Airspeed's round 10, and wow that's an amazing jump, a spotless 26 points on the board, drawing a large round of applause from the growing crowd in the hangar. Speaking of spotless, check out Airspeed's scoring summary. Not one single bust the whole meet, and the only speck of dirt on any score sheet was in round two. Now THAT is most impressive! Has there ever been a team go 10 rounds without a single bust? Somebody look it up for us. UPDATE - Airspeed did have one bust in round two, 3 of 5 judges popped them. Still an amazing feat though.

All right, here's Fury...THEY DID IT! It's a 25! Wait for the judges to stamp it though...the first couple of times through the pages I didn't think they had a chance, but they kept picking up the pace each time through...I think there is a busted sidebody, and they had 26 formations in time, so the 25 stands and Perris Fury has come from behind to win the silver medal. What a finish! Congratulations Perris!

Ouch. The camera flyer for Mass Defiance left the plane too soon, and by the time the team came into the frame it was the end of the jump. The judges are trying to figure out how to handle it. I think it should be a zero, there is no way to determine when the team left the airplane, so there is no way to determine a score. After a good ten minutes of working on it, the judges have scored them a 1 with 3 working formations. I don't see how that's possible, but I guess I will find out later...we've always been told that the clock starts when the first team member leaves the airplane, not including the camera flyer, and in this case when the team left the airplane, they were not in the video. I'll have an explanation from the judges later...UPDATE: Judy just showed me the FAI reference, and in cases where the start time can't be determined by the team, it's started by the videographer's exit, then there's a certain penalty applied to whatever then gets judged. I think the FAI should change the rules to just include the camera flyer into the team so the judges will always have the same reference for starting the clock. I can't count the number of false starts we've gone through because of camera flyers that leave just before the rest of the team. So I do hope they change that rule. UPDATE: A reader provides the actual text from the IPC rules:

The chronometer will be operated by the Judges or by a person(s) appointed by the Chief Judge, and will be started as determined in 2.13. If Judges cannot determine the start of the working time, the following procedure will be followed. Working time will start as the videographer separates from the aircraft and a penalty equal to 20% (rounded down) of the score for that jump will be deducted from the score for that jump.

The reader also adds:

Does adding video to when the "team" leaves the plane really fix this issue? Given that video is looking at the formation, there is nobody looking at the video guy to see when he really "separates from the aircraft". Given that a fair number of video flyers may well move their heads prior to actually separating from the aircraft (which may give the illusion to the judges that they have left), this seems likely to cause just as much confusion. The rule, as it sits, seems very clear. Regardless of which standard you use, will it ever get easier to get five humans to push the button within the acceptable margin for avoiding a false start?

These are all debatable points, and I agree to a certain extent with the reader. I will write more about this later, time permitting. END UPDATE

What? Who? CF Sequential? Frayed Knot. Up by three with three to go.

Perris Fury. I believe they had trailed the Knights all the way until round 10. Is that right? What a clutch skydive at the end. They earned it.

Back to the finals of Intermediate 4-way, Air Force posted a 11 so Slipstream will need a 13 to tie. That's going to be tough, no one's scored higher than 11 so far, but we'll see...here they are, and they post the same 11, so Air Force Encore wins the silver and Slipstream the bronze.

Speaking of clean skydiving (going back to my comments earlier about Airspeed's clean scoring summary), Perris Fury sure cleaned up their skydiving compared to last year. Could it have anything to do with the fact that two of their members got FS judge ratings in the last year? Or just coincidence? Hat tip: Judy.

1500
4-way FS is a complete wrap and what fun it was. 8-way registration is tonight and I hear we have 18 teams registered so far. All judging is done for the day. In CF Sequential, Redline picked up two points, and with two rounds to go they trail by only one point. And be sure to check out these awesome interviews over at http://www.thepdblog.com/.

And now, last but not least, I leave you with this one final bit for the day. I am very proud to post this:

I would like to conclude today's TiimBits on a bit of a personal note. Earlier this month, OmniSkore creator Ted Wagner, along with Larry Hill (who was instrumental in creating LiveSkore, which Ted then developed into OmniSkore), were awarded the FAI Faust Vrančić Medal, only the second time that the award has been presented since its inception. The previous recipient was Gerd Weckbecker, who invented the electronic scoring pad used by Accuracy competitions. Faust Vrančić was possibly the first person to actually test a parachute. From Wikipedia:   Vrančić had examined Leonardo da Vinci's rough sketches of a parachute, and set out to implement a parachute of his own. A now-famous sketch of a parachute that he dubbed Homo Volans appeared in the aforementioned book. Twenty years later, he implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from a tower in Venice in 1617. The event was documented some 30 years after it happened in a book written by John Wilkins, the secretary of the Royal Society in London. I am sometimes referred to as a co-creator of OmniSkore, but my contribution was little more than a few graphics and a web page. Like painting two strokes for Leonardo da Vinci on a corner of the Mona Lisa. What Ted created from scratch revolutionized the scoring of formation skydiving competitions, and over time he added support for Artistic Events, Style & Accuracy, and Canopy Formations. Of course, as his twin brother I carry a strong bias, but in this case I consider it appropriate. Congratulations Bro, you deserved it, and Larry Hill too, for your role in getting it all started. And special thanks go to Larry Bagley, USPA Director of Competitions and Special Events (and here the USPA Nationals Controller), without whose efforts this award would never have happened. Thank  you Larry!

Good night and see you tomorrow!

Email Tim

Note: All Omnibits commentary are the expressed opinions of the writer, not USPA or Skydive Arizona.