Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Judging an RV

Homebuilt judges are busy people at Oshkosh. They'll judge an estimated 800 planes in a week, starting at 8 in the morning going until around 3 in the afternoon. They judge in groups of 3, rotating the individuals so a judge isn't with the same 3 each day. They input the data on a PDA and then download it to a computer which does its thing and spits out the results.

The judges use a point system, awarding a 1-10 score on individual areas such as appearance, fuselage, instrumentation, paint, and power plant and then award an overall score to the airplane.

Armed with this judging standard, I tried my hand at it, selecting the first RV I could find -- there are 400 of them at Oshkosh -- and giving it a good going over. The result? It's better than what I'm building. Join me for the judging.

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2 comments:

  1. Bob, You should easily become the "Charles Curalt" of Aviation, travelling around talking about airplanes and airports. You're a natural. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the pun "MT Pockets" on the EAA card on N174MT. Really nice airplane.
    Don Hull

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  2. Bob,

    Interesting piece on RV judging! FYI, the Perseverance Award is given to a builder the first year they fly their new plane to the fly-in (the yellow ribbon is from Sun-N-Fun if I recall correctly, been a few years now...). It doesn't signify anything other than you "persevered" and completed your plane.

    Sam Buchanan

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