Protest committee
Larry Bunner
Bruce Barmakian|Larry Bunner
Bruce Barmakian|competition|Larry Bunner
Bruce Barmakian|competition|Larry Bunner
We had a couple of protests regarding the day we went around the Green Swamp:
https://airtribune.com/2019-quest-air-nationals-week-2/results
https://airtribune.com/2019-quest-air-nationals-week-2/results/task4007/day/open-class
The problem is that after the pilot meeting a waypoint was added. The waypoint added a very slight increase in the task length (0.6%).
Famish was the added waypoint:
Unfortunately three pilots were not cognizant of the task change. Kevin Dutt, Bruce Barmakian and me. Fortunately I was flying with Larry Bunner and he told me on the radio to go get the Famish turnpoint. Kevin and Bruce didn't hear about the waypoint until after their flights. Bruce made a verbal complaint to the meet director which latter led to two written protests
The meet director made a number of errors so that there wasn't full communication between the pilots and the task committee. She appointed a protest committee to sort out the problem.
The first judgment of the protest committee was to cancel the day. This was met with almost universal opprobrium. There were lengthy discussions before and after the protest committee met for the first time that were held on the What's App groups set up by the meet director. All the issues were brought up and thoroughly adjudicated.
The protest committee was convinced to meet again and to reconsider their conclusion. This is what Section 7A states:
5.5.2 Result of Complaint or Protest
If a protest from a pilot or group of pilots calls for the retrospective cancellation of a scored task, the jury must consider the position of other pilots in the competition. If the protest is justified, the jury should consider how to compensate the affected pilots, but should only consider cancelling the task if there is no other fair option.
There were multiple fair options other than canceling the day. The protest committee came up with a reasonably fair option: Score the day with the original task without the addition of the Famish waypoint because not all pilots were notified of the task change (and the local rules were not followed describing how they should be notified).
The meet director and the protest committee were exemplary in their actions regarding this issue and there were no objections to the final result. This is the most fair action I have seen coming out of a protest committee. A committee must use its judgment when interpreting the rules and not just see them as iron glad commandments from on high. The major thing is to be fair. Sometimes juries forget this.
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