2014 USPA National Skydiving Championships


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Welcome to Omnibits for Saturday, 13 September (Day 3)

0001

I'm making this lame jump on tomorrow's 'Bits the night before because, if the weather cooperates, I'll be very busy running around with a can of Murphy repellant most of tomorrow. First calls are early and the Meet Director plans to chase the competitors around with a can of Shortcall until after sundown.

A real shame about the weather. (Honest, we didn't bring it from Phoenix, Noah doesn't provide Internet.)

I know they're my friends & customers & all but I really have to tip my hat to the FS judges here, especially Chief Judge (the "three feathers" flavor) Randy Connell.

They have not sat on their hands one second during all this downtime. They have been training constantly and I've observed them discussing and dissecting the rules from top to bottom while grinding through video after video with nary an argument nor raised voice. Every judge's opinion is solicited and all participate. It really is a top notch crew assembled here. They will make mistakes of course -- tomorrow is going to be a 16-hour grinder -- but the competitors should rest assured that this staff are taking their job very seriously. They know who the real customer is.

And if they make me regret saying that, I'm going to put itching powder on their consoles.

I'm wondering if anyone here captured the homage to Mike Truffer on video last night. (I was busy printing slates for the 4-Way FS teams.) If so I would love to share it. I learned a lot of things about MT I never knew before.

And I'd give anything to hear his first conversation with Rose after he got ... Up There.

One of Mom's favorite stories was about the first time she met Mike, when he was visiting Spaceland in the early 80s. Rose was taking food orders before going out to do her shopping, and she took those personal requests rather seriously. When she asked MT what he wanted for dinner, his response was ... "lobster".

And lobster is what he got!

Rose wasn't pleased with the request, but she was happy to please, and I'm sure they've been yucking it up big time since last summer.

RIP MT. Say hi to Rose for me.

0637

MFS 2-Way teams just went on a FIVE MINUTE call.

Our windshield had a layer of ice on it this morning -- but under clear blue skies interrupted only by a waxing moon!

I've received emails pointing out that the team photo links are b0rken. That's because most of them have not been taken yet. Expect them to show up during the day today. (This is pointed out by the fine print under each results table.)

0725

Judges have their first videos. Finally, first scores coming in minutes!

0830

I've been sorting out an issue with the "scoring summaries" that go to the results pages. Normally these are only created upon the completion of a round, but starting with this competition, we want a team's scoring summaries (viewied by clicking on the cumulative score in the TOT column) to be created each time they have a new score posted. Hopefully this is working now.

Edit: Not working yet ... the scoring explanations aren't making it ... hack hack hack ...

1000

Shazam, 4-Way FS has started!!!

Everything is going smoothly. The jumping has had to slow down a bit because of a problem running parallel jump runs. (I'll try to get the details on that.)

GUEST TEAMS: The problem with your teams not appearing in the results tables was resolved last night. If you don't see your team, please refresh your browser. If that doesn't work, replace your browser. If that doesn't work, replace your computer. Really, they're there.

Things settled down so I grabbed my camera, triple checked the auto focus settings, and headed outside to take some pictures under the sun. I made it two steps out the door before I started shivering so I said f*ck that and headed back inside. $%^&*ing camera still doesn't take focused pictures, I'm going to roof test it and start using my smartphone instead.

Manifest! One of them has a very nice voice on FM 88.5.

The picnic tables outside are all empty -- at least until next week.

A good crwod watches the action on four strategically placed monitors.

One of the three FS panels churning out scores this morning.

Melissa, my copy station assistant, on the right. What I like to see -- short lines at the copy stations and bored helpers!

Another thing I like to see -- longer lines at the JukeBoxes than the copy stations.

Roy has a Canon G12 I'm going to start using tomorrow.

Discussion: Guest teams. (You see them with a "(G)" in the results tables -- but you knew that.) At FAI competitions they do not appear at all, in any standings (which can appear on paper, on DZTV, and on the omniskore.com results tables). For USPA competitions we obviously include them, but where should they go? ... inline, according to their scores, or at the bottom?

For this competition we're going to inline them for "standings at round" and put them at the bottom for "final standings".

Personally I'd prefer to see the same choice used for both -- inline. Competitors like to see their competition where they are. Even when "inline" they don't get a ranking position number (just a "-"), so it's clear what's going on.

Jim Hayhurst also brought up the point that many other sports have done away with the concept of "guest" competitors -- in golf, tennis, etc, all the national championships are "open", even when the competition is used to select the country's representative for the international level. Should USPA take that approach?

1200

Judges are taking a lunch break ...

1300

With the MFS 2-Way and VFS teams released for a while after completing two rounds, the 4-Way Bellyfliers, all 255 of them, have been taking their turn with the turning. Arizona Airspeed, just back from their silver medal performance at the World Championships in Prostejov, have a quick 7 point lead after two rounds of Open. The Adv and Int events only have maybe a half dozen jumps left to score to complete Round 2.

Note that there is a "4-Way FS Open Female" event in OSHD, but there really isn't such an event. Not yet sure how I'm going to handle it ... any all-female Open teams qualify for medal placing in Open Female.

1400

VFS snuck up on me and is almost done with round 3 (MFS still resting). The Golden Knights VFS is running away with an 11 point lead in Advanced after 3, while Arizona Arsenal has the same lead at the same point in Open.

VFS and BFS are blazing ahead into Round 4.

REMINDERS:

Team photo links (under the team numbers on the results pages) will not work until the team's photo is taken and uploaded. Good news: all but maybe one or two should be uploaded by the time you see this.
The number you see under the TOT column is only the total through the last completed round, which you can see reflected in the "Standings At Round X" subheader in the top of the table. If you see scores appearing for Round Y, chances are that subtitle says "Standings at Round X".

I'm still seeing a lot of 4:3 videos being submitted. Fair warning, videographers: starting tomorrow you will see a tin can out by the JukeBoxes. They will not replay your 4:3 video until you put four bits in the can. Tomorrow afternoon it will go up to six bits.

1600

I'm told that GKF4 (Golden Knights Female 4) score of 29 in Round 1 is a national record for the female category. Look for it on SkydiveTV soon!

1900

You might have noticed the judges have been taking a well deserved break for a pulled pork, corn on the cob, baked tater, green veggies and salad dinner. SDC scored some serious bonus points with that!

Tomorrow morning is 0700 first call, 4-Way all day. The MFS/VFS events will finish tonight -- but it doesn't look like all scheduled rounds will be completed. Some will, some won't.

2000

The 2-Way MFS events will be judged through Round 5, and that's it, they weren't able to complete 6. The 4-Way VFS events will end at Round 7.

All of the 4-Way FS events jumped five rounds today. Not sure they will finish judging them tonight though.

2050

All MFS and VFS events are FINAL. (Err, VFS Advanced isn't marked Final yet, I see a tie for 3rd, don't know what's going on there yet.)

Absolutely awesome jobs by the competition staff and especially the judges doing an amazing amount of work today.