The Bureau of CIVA completed voting today on who will be designated as "FAI Judges" at the upcoming Advanced World Aerobatic Championships in Murska-Sobota, Slovenia. The Championships is scheduled for August.

Judges selected by the Bureau are:

Quintin HAWTHORNE (South Africa)
Osmo JALOVAARA (Finland)
Radomir ORLITA (Slovenia)

Under a program originally proposed by the President of CIVA, the Bureau now has the authority to select Judges for World Championships. Judges are no longer considered as part of "teams" and are international officials in accordance with Sporting Code. Delegates are invited to nominate Judges. Those selected are paid $500, as are their Assistants, to help with travel costs to the competitions.

Countries can still send any Judge they wish to the Championships, in order for new Judges to gain experience and to eventually qualify for selection. All Judges -- regardless of whether they are FAI-designated or not --- must survive the test of Programme Q. Judging evaluations are done at the conclusion of this programme and up to 10 Judges are then selected to continue in the competition based on their performance. Judges Performance Factors (JPFs) are used in the process.

Just a short update this month…

Summer is rapidly approaching and a full schedule of FAI Aerobatic Championships are well underway in their planning stages.

The European Aerobatic Championships will be held in Lithuania this year. Bulletin #1 for this competition can be found on this website and downloaded for your information. The organizing committee is headed by long-time aerobatic competitor Vytautus Lapenas who also runs a flight school there. "Vitas" has competed at Unlimited level for many years and was last seen flying his Sukhoi 29 in the World Aerobatic Championships in Burgos, Spain last summer. He is widely admired in the aerobatic community and I expect he and his organizing committee will do a fine job. EACs have been organized for decades and this contest continues this tradition.

The V.Advanced World Aerobatic Championships will be held in Slovenia this year under the guidance of Martin Burjan, long time delegate to CIVA. Martin hosted the CIVA plenary meeting in Bled in 2000 and it was outstanding. His staff will do a masterful job on this contest as well, I am quite sure.

Finally, the European Glider Aerobatic Championships will be held in Pasewalk, Germany in July under the guidance of Manfred Echter. Glider aerobatics is thoroughly entrenched in CIVA now and an important part of our activities.

Thus, three new Champions will be named this year and will take home well deserved trophies. We will, of course, have reports on those contests as they progress --- as we have in the past.

Our new CIVA Aerobatic Contest Scoring System (ACSS) will also be in use at these contests. I would pay special tribute to Michel Dupont of France who has developed this new program. It has undergone several beta versions, hours and hours of testing and fine-tuning, but will get its full operational debut at the EAC in Lithuania -- the first contest on the schedule. Michel will be on hand to assure its smooth operation. We also plan to have it available in CD form when the final beta version has been tested and evaluated.

Judges for AWAC are being voted upon by the Bureau of CIVA as I write this page. Those designated as "FAI Judges" will be paid stipends, as will their assistants, in accordance with our new International Corps of Judges program introduced in 2001. In the future, Judges will not be considered part of a team but rather independent evaluators of aerobatic performance with no national tie. This is as it should be. While some Judges are "FAI", any nation can send a judge to a World Championships. After Programme Q, based on performance, the final panel is then selected. The Bureau may select a maximum of 7 Judges to be FAI-designated and paid, but all Judges regardless of designation must survive the test of Programme Q (or the Known in Gliders) to continue in the competition. This is done by the International Jury's review of Judges Performance Factors (JPFs) which are derived by the contest scoring system.
Ultimately, our goal has and always will be providing the best judging we can for our highly skilled competitors who only seem to improve each year.

Regarding World Air Games …

As many of you know, the next Games are tentatively scheduled for 2005. As far as aerobatic participation is concerned, this is still to be determined. Aerobatics obviously must be a part of the WAG --- our sport is one of the most attractive and exciting to spectators and media. But it appears now that the "new" format for the Games will be a smaller one and therefore not set up for a full contingent of teams from around the world. Perhaps just the top 20-30 pilots or so. How these will be selected and how the classical World Aerobatic Championships will fit in is yet to be decided. We will begin discussions this summer at AWAC and then again in the Fall during our plenary meeting.

More soon …

Mike HEUER
CIVA President

The deadline for the submission of rules proposals for 2003 by Delegates to CIVA has now expired. Ten member countries of CIVA submitted documents by the April 1st deadline.

These proposals will be considered by the various CIVA Sub-Committees this summer. Rules & Judging Sub-Committees are scheduled to meet in Murska-Sobota, Slovenia during the Advanced World Aerobatic Championships. Sub-Committee recommendations will be published in late August 2002.

Ultimately, the recommendations will decided upon at the plenary meeting of CIVA which will take place in Madrid, Spain during the first weekend in November 2002. The aerobatic community is encouraged to contact your national delegates to provide input on these rules proposals. Members of Sub-Committees can also be contacted here.

Click here to go directly to the proposals themselves which are available for download in PDF format.

The organisers of the European Aerobatic Championships in Lithuania and the Advanced World Aerobatic Championships in Slovenia are on schedule with plans for these important aerobatic events.

Bulletin #1 for the EAC can be downloaded here (276K).

Bulletin #1 for the AWAC can be downloaded here (188K).

These Bulletins contain important organisational details, preliminary entry forms, fees, and deadlines on these events. They are in PDF format.

The 2002 versions of the FAI Sporting Code, Section 6 - Aerobatics and Parts 1 through 3 of CIVA Regulations are now available. These new documents are a result of extensive discussions held at sub-committee meetings and the CIVA plenary meeting in Prague in November 2001.

The files can be downloaded here and are in PDF format.

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