Sanctioning
Q: How does Sanctioning work?
Contest Directors must receive a sanction to hold an IAC contest. Sanction is granted if all the other requirements are met, but can be refused or withdrawn if a contest is unable to meet the IAC’s standards.
Contests that are unsanctioned have no insurance, their results are not recorded, and they are ignored during the calculation of regional and national standings.
Q: What is a Rule Deviation and how does it work?
This feature of the Sanctioning program allows a Contest Director to suspend, modify, or add contest rules. For this to be approved the CD must ask for the deviation.
All contests must be sanctioned to be insured, so make sure your contest has authority for anything that isn't exactly in line with the rule book. No one at the contest has the authority to issue a Rule Deviation. It has to happen during the Sanctioning process.
Q: Can a CD change the flight programs or re-order them?
The Contest Director has authority over scheduling. That means they can determine which programs are flown, provided they work within the minimal restrictions found in the rule book:
- The rule book states that the Known program must be flown first, which implies that it must be scheduled, which means this program is mandatory. All contests begin with the Known.
- The rule book states that the Four Minute Free must be flown last, if it is flown. Whether to schedule a Four Minute Free program is up to the Contest Director.
Outside of that, the Contest Director can schedule the Free and Unknown programs in any quantity and number that they want. In actual practice, most contests follow the Known, Free, Unknown format, but there are some contests that are single program Known-only affairs, some contests that skip the Free or the Unknown, and some contests that run with multiple Unknowns.
Whatever schedule you plan for should be communicated well in advance so your competitors can prepare.
Also, make sure the Sequence Chair is able to provide multiple Unknown sequences before you schedule multiple Unknown Programs. Coordinate this well in advance.
Q: We can't mark the box at our contest site. Can we still have a contest?
There is no rule that specifies exactly what markings must be present but you must have a "clearly marked" area. If you can't mark the box at all then how will pilots know where to fly? One or two missing markers still complies with the rule, but you should communicate this to pilots before and during the contest.
If you can't have box markers at all explain your situation when you apply for sanction and the special needs of your contest will be considered.
Q: Are boundary judges required?
They are required according to the rule book, but this is a common Rule Deviation as many contests are unable to staff boundaries due to airport restrictions, geography, or a lack of volunteers.
Q: I heard about a contest where they ran a Free Program that was also an Unknown. How does that work??
There is an elegant way for a Contest Director to allow competitors to individually choose how much of a challenge they want without having to involve the Sequence Chair or Sanctioning Chair.
What the CD does is create an Unknown Sequence that conforms to the rules of the Free Program. Competitors then choose whether to fly their personal Free Sequence or the Unknown Free.
Q: I have a cool idea for a contest format that is totally different than what we have now. Can I try it out?
You can ask for a Rule Deviation but we have regional and national standings to consider so if your contest idea doesn't allow for us to compare the results to other contests it would be unfair to sanction it. We also have to consider liability issues and the safest thing for the IAC to do is say "no".
Q: The rule book says I need to have 3 judges but that isn’t possible at my contest. What can I do?
A few options:
- Per the exception in rule 11.3.1, Advanced and Unlimited competitors can serve as judges.
- The rule book says that both Judge Assistants and Recorders will be appointed, but it is ok to combine these positions into one Assistant/Recorder.
- It is more important to have grading judges than boundary judges. You can ask for a Rule Deviation to leave the boundaries unstaffed to free up resources.
- The Chief Judge can also serve as a grading judge.
If none of those solutions work, you can ask for a Rule Deviation.
Jury Issues
Q: I'm on a jury and a competitor has protested an Unknown sequence. What do I do?
If the sequence is unsafe or does not conform to the rules, the jury is authorized to make a minimal correction to it to make it safe and legal. However, juries very rarely modify sequences. In the unusual case where it must be done, the jury should inform the Sequence Chair or the President that they've done so, and they should expect review. Our goal is to provide sequences that are challenging. Juries should not undermine that goal.
Competitors can get very clever and persistent in their arguments about what is "unsafe". It is expected that Advanced and Unlimited sequences will be uncomfortable and difficult to fly. That's not a reason, by itself, to call them unsafe.
The Sequence Committee cannot be aware of all the differences in pilot capability in your area. If you encounter a sequence that does not feel safe to a local group of competitors, an elegant solution is for them to agree to a break or to take a zero on a certain figure.
Remember our sequences come from volunteers so feel free to propose your own for next year.
Q: How are juries supposed to act?
Juries are responsible for enforcing the contest rules. Juries cannot suspend or alter rules, nor can they introduce new rules. In fact, it is the jury's responsibility to suspend the contest if the rules are not followed.
Juries cannot play favorites. They cannot be generous. They cannot be harsh. They should not be creative. Creativity creates controversy. Juries should be boring.
Almost all the time, the jury’s job is to just do what the rule book says. If the rule book isn't perfectly clear, the jury will have to create a solution that fits into the body of rules as congruently as possible.
When the jury comes upon a rule or an outcome they don't like, they should report it to the Rules Chair for later amendment.
The Jury Chair should always make sure any protest fee is collected before giving the grievant the time of day. The protest fee is there to keep people from making trivial requests. If they grievant loses their protest, they do not get their money back. This is to train people to read through the rule book before bothering the jury.
A note about difficult people: to be impartial you have to let go of any concerns over how someone will react to your decision. Your job is not to make people happy; it is to enforce the rules.
