Ok... I was heading up the Refs so I better jump in here.
1st of all there were 11 planes per side... NOT 10, like Hang and Hristo reported... and not 12 vs 10 like Hang claims.
2nd. There was a *frantic* discussion regarding the merge between myself and the other ref's (mostly Mathman)- when we saw what was happening. When we realised that there were inded two groups (and this was not just LW, the Ponys split into two also) we were left with trying to distinguish just what the hell the merge WAS.
Now - the ROE was completely fediddleing FUBAR. Blame THAT - and do NOT insult us by saying that us 'pinheads' cannot read. I assure you we are quite capable of it. Insulting Mathman's 'education' is an insult to me... I very much appreciated his help.
Now here's what was wrong with the ROE that *you guys* came up with, and here's what us refs did.
Number one - you gave each side *two* fields to up from. Now - why in the world would this be done unless you wanted the flights to come in stagered? No reason to, unless for some reason you wanted to meet in the middle, form up and go into the merge together... so no... no reason to do that.
Now what we got is 4 different flights. The ROE states:
"Guns are COLD at the merge.. due to the large numbers of A/C and the likelyhood of their being somewhat spread out; the observers will announce 'fight's on' after merge conditions are completed to their satisfaction. (all a/c have passed clear of each other co-alt at @15k)".
Let me parse this.
You acknowledge that the flights would be spread out. Now look at this realistically in terms of a merge. Do you seriously expect that the 1st two groups would meet up, then fly around in circles with eachother in some kind of a big AC stew waiting for the rest of the flights to show up? That's a tad untennable, no? So the LW's 2nd group shows up, joins in the mosh pit and waits till the 51's 2nd group comes blazing in and THEN the fight starts?
"The observers will announce 'fight's on' after merge conditions are completed to their satisfaction." When Mathman and I saw that y'all were staggering, and realized what was gonna transpire, I gave orders to Mathman to call "fight on" once the 1st acceptable, clean merge had taken place. Merge conditions had taken place to our satisfaction, we called it, and the fight was on.
A couple things Hang. 1st of all... I was riding observer with you, but because you either damaged yer plane or made a tactical decision, you decided to land only 2-3 minutes after upping. You screwed the landing, burrying yer prop on the pavement... and this perhaps accounts for just a little of yer ire? Regardless.. because of this I was stuck in the twr and left it to Mathman to call the merge. We were in constant direct communication and I'm fully satisfied that he called it right. Another thing - you seemed to be completely unaware (u missed the buffer) that the "fights on" had been called till almost 10 minutes later. You can't blame anyone else for that. And you can't blame the LW for seeing it and engaging.
Frankly I'm a little annoyed at this. I had hoped this would be a tense little scuffle, yes.. but it's just a freaking BLIP as far as these kinds of events go. Ya had yer shot, ya lost, but there will be many many more. And pretty much, the object is to have a scream flying in one of these things. To take it so personally, and to insult everyone around you (the people that took the time to be here and fly in this, the people that organized this, the people that tried to make it go smoothly) is outrageous.
I want to congralute the LW on thier win. And I want to congratulate ALL the flyers for their work in preparing and competing as best ya could.
I would hope that the guys on the losing side, whether justified or not... could just give a <S>, and plan on stickin' it to 'em next time. This kinda ranting serves nobody.
You guys authored that fediddleed ROE. Live with it.
I was gonna whip up a thing on the Rumble site documenting the fight, the preperations, etc. etc... But I'm a bit disgusted. Instead I'll only offer this: