Flight Coach Judge (FCJudge or FCJ) is an addon that will assist the pilots in allocating scores to already captured and split flights. It is a step and a tool towards allowing remote judging of F3A flights and online F3A competitions.
There is a wide range of views within F3A community if the remote and computer based judging in F3A is practical and/or desired. Many of us agree that replacing a real life competition where all pilots compete in the same location and conditions in front of a set of judges may be difficult. At the same time there is an opportunity and a need to bring the excitement of F3A competition to countries, places and pilots that do not have opportunities to attend a real F3A competition. FCJudge can also be used as another training tool, additional to FlighCoach. Lastly, there is some practicalities like costs, judge availability, personal circumstances, etc. that may stop us from competing and this tool may overcome this even if it was considered an imitation of a real comp.
The tool
FCJ is a simplified and modified version of the FC. Flights need to be loaded to the FC first (from BIN, JSON), split into the maneuvers and saved in JSON format. The JSON file can then be opened in FCJ.
JSON now contains scores so the entire file it has been secured to stop manual modifications. Required JSON version is 1.3. Older flights can be loaded to FCJ by creating a new json from the BIN file using the latest Plotter (2.3 or later).
Once file is loaded, the user has the option of moving between the maneuvers and ‘playing’ each of them.The scenery has been designed to resemble the real life view of a flying airplane. Assisting lines, colors, background has been set to replicate the real life judging difficulties; some are hardly visible on purpose. It is of course a severe compromise, translating a 3D view into a flat 2D screen. The target here has been to provide similar level of difficulty in assessing the flight so there is no side views, no graphs, lines are not clearly visible, there is no information on the distance other than the fog (distance driven) that simulates the airplane deteriorated visibility with distance.
Within each maneuver the pilot/judge can adjust the score starting from the perfect 10. It can either be adjusted with the buttons or a number entered. The score is stored within the JSON although the file must be saved at the end of the session to retain this information. Another person opening thus saved scores will see them upon opening in FCJ. The scoring box will appear on maneuvers that can be scored only and can be moved across the screen. Currently there is no option to play the entire flight (score allocation) but hitting the > button will continue playing the next maneuver.
Settings allow for adjusting the model size and the playback speed. The higher the number, the slower it flies. Speed will vary between computers and browsers, our experience has been that Firefox can play the flight much faster. It is recommended to use it on a large/desktop screen, the tool may be compromised on small screens. Currently, the view is set to the center judge view, sitting height and only available for F3A.
