The rules state that all formation grips must be visible at all times. If they pass out of shot for even a fraction of a section, a bust is incurred. Do you think it is a fair for a team to loose points even if it is obvious the grip was still intact?
Stu Ferguson - Yes. Skydiving is a five man team. The camera man has a role to play, as well as the 4 geekers. To score the point the five must act as a unit so it should stay.
Henry Chow - I think that the rule is fair. There are no reason why grips should be out of shot in the first place. The camera person is as much part of the team as the 4-way itself, hitherto should ensure the grips are in shot at all times. While the rule may seem unduly harsh, it would certainly be unfair if one team gets busted and another team doesn't if this rule is not in place.
Henry Chow - I think that the rule is fair. There are no reason why grips should be out of shot in the first place. The camera person is as much part of the team as the 4-way itself, hitherto should ensure the grips are in shot at all times. While the rule may seem unduly harsh, it would certainly be unfair if one team gets busted and another team doesn't if this rule is not in place.
Phil Hartree - If it's likely that the grip remains intact - then the point should stand.
Simon Brentford - Its hard to give an answer to this question simply because its hard to define exactly what 'obvious' actually is. For example, is it just the edge of grip which disappears out of shot for 2 seconds; or is it half of the body which disappears for a fraction of a second? In principle I think a judge can be consistent and fair in their decision making process, but that certainly is not going to stop teams complaining. So for that reason, any grip which moves out of shot should incurr a bust.
Andy Scott
ReplyDeleteIts the same for all teams - and the videographer is part of that team. So yes its fair. Any feeling of hard done by can of course be protested with that money going into the british team fund - used at this moment to fund our delegate clothing at International level ( sense this answer would breed other questions ) - the fund stands at around £17k
It's formation skydiving. I know judges make mistakes, but the idea is that everything is definitive, and all the rules are there to eliminate grey areas.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you can "know" someone doesn't break a grip in the block move because they fly it, but the judges can *only* judge what they see. If you introduce one bit of "in the judges' opinion", you open the door for more later on.
If the grips go out of shot, it's a bust. Which sucks, it's happened to me, but it's still a bust and I think it should stay that way.
In response to CodeFarmer,
ReplyDeleteThere used to be a time only a few years ago when the judges used their 'discretion' and this worked for many years. Since this rule has come in, its become a lot fairer and the number of busts has also increased.
As a cameraman myself, I am forced to work that much harder to keep the team in shot.
There is only one negative to this rule. As a generalisation, inexperienced teams move around in the sky a lot more, are less predictable and often have inexperienced cameraman. Theoretically (although not proven), the rate of busts might be disproportionately higher in the more junior classes.