2006 Plenary: a first report

Twenty-six nations were present and another three represented in Lausanne, Switzerland, from February 11th to 12th, for the 31st plenary of the CIVL. The Plenary was preceded on February the 9th by a Bureau meeting and on the 10th by a full day of working by the different working groups and subcommittees. This is a brief summary of those meetings. The full minutes will be published as soon as they are approved by the Bureau. Pictures free of copyrights are available at http://photos.fai.org/hang_gliding/civl_meetings/2006/

The Bureau would like to thank the efficient FAI staff who did most of the work organising this event. Special thanks to Cosette Mast.

The participants

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (proxy to USA), Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Mexico (proxy to Spain), Netherlands, New Zealand (proxy to Australia), Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Spain, Sweden Switzerland, Turkey, UK, USA.

The FAI President, Pierre Portmann, The FAI Executive Officer, Robert Clipsham, and the FAI Secretary General, Max Bishop, attended the meeting and addressed the delegates, bringing their support to our sport and actions.

Safety

Improvement of safety is still the primary concern of the sub-committees, working groups and Plenary. This concern was visible in the adjustments made to our regulations. No big changes were recorded this year, as last year additions (safety director, mandatory safety meeting, maximum wind speed…) have been satisfactory.

Communication

We put out a lot of work on our web site last year with the publication of a book and the revamping of our web site. Two days before the Plenary opened, CIVL new web site was available. It was underlined that we will have here a nice showcase for promotion and a very efficient tool at the service of pilots and competition organisers.

Scoring and ranking

Great progress has been made by the relevant subcommittee on the development of new software including competition and pilots database, pilots and teams ranking, flight verification and competition scoring. Suggestions from different countries were taken into account. Some modules, like World Ranking, Competition and Pilots Database will be ready in next few weeks and CIVL is aiming at having the first version of all modules of the software available by the end of the year, free of charge for pilots, competition organisers and national associations.

Bids, Reviews, Local Regulations

It was first agreed that subcommittees can only make recommendations on the acceptance or not of a bid rather than veto them. The following bids for 2008 Category 1 competitions were presented: - Aerobatic Hang gliding and Paragliding Worlds: Voss, Norway – Dates to be specified by 31 May (June 20 to 29 or August 22 to 31). - Paragliding European: Nis, Serbia and Montenegro – to be confirmed in the next week, but around July 5-10th 2008. - Paragliding Accuracy European: Nis, Serbia and Montenegro – August 3 to 10, 2008. These were accepted.

A bid is also expected for the first Paragliding Pan-American Championship in April or May of 2008. The Bureau was authorised to accept a valid bid when it is received.

Reviews were made of the 2005 Category 1 competitions: World Paragliding Championship in Brazil and World Paragliding Accuracy in Lithuania.

Local regulations for the World Class 2, 5 and 1 Women (Groveland, Florida), for the European Paragliding (Morzine, France), and for the European Class 1 (Kvarner and Istra, Croatia) were ratified. These Local Regulations are available on CIVL web site and on the organisers websites (that you can reach throught the CIVL competition calendar web pages).

Administration

The 2005 Plenary minutes, 2006 Plenary agenda, president and treasurer reports were presented. The 2006 budget was unanimously accepted. Various modifications were proposed for Section 7 of the FAI Sporting Code by the technical subcommittees and by the Section 7 subcommittee. Some were modified before being adopted.

CIVL President, Flip Koetsier, underlined the importance for CIVL of having subcommittees and working group that work effectively throughout the year. Actions were taken to that effect: modification of our Internal Regulation and formal nomination of permanent members in the subcommittees and working group.

Subcommittees

Subcommittees and working groups reports and proposals were examined.

Safety and training A specific CIVL Incident Report Form was adopted. Other topics were examined in the Hang gliding and Paragliding subcommittees. The Emergency Requirements will be changed into recommendations and placed in the Organiser Handbook, in the Jury and Steward Handbook and in the bid process. Stewards will be asked to check whether those recommendations are followed or not.

Hang gliding A working group including manufacturers and pilots was formed for studying means to control gliders pitch devices settings. It was also decided that the DHV would trial their current procedures for this for a further year and it will also be trialled at the European Championships in Croatia – but only as a trial and with no penalties being applied. Another working group will study potential changes in our system used to qualify pilots for Category 1 competitions. Were also studied Section 7 modifications, conditions for scoring a stopped task, scoring software modifications, possibilities to organise unified Class 1, 2, 5 championships…

Paragliding In Category 1 competition, the minimum number of pilot a country can enter has been raised from 2 to 3; the minimum number of extra women allowed to fly is now 1 without regard to the countries ranking; reallocation procedures have been revised. Category 2 competitions will be valid whatever the number of pilots or task flown. Also studied were Section 7 modifications: flying controls for the press, glider airworthiness and permit to fly, conditions for scoring a stopped task, scoring software modifications…

Aerobatics Starting from scratch, a lot of work was done on the Local Regulations: minimum of runs to validate a competition, pilots representatives, prize money, complaints and protests, judges, landing, communication, warnings, etc. It was agreed that there will be a deadline of 22nd February for any more results to be submitted so that the nation ranking can be finalised. This is important as national rankings affect the number of pilots permitted in national teams.

Paragliding Landing Accuracy Many points in Section 7 were examined. Some were deferred for further discussion, others agreed upon, including the number of pilots necessary to validate a Category 2 event. A new ranking system was adopted, with the proviso that some parameters can be adjusted.

Record, Badges & Flight verification Section 7d amendments that were proposed to clear up ambiguities and wording were accepted. Design, costs and financing of the new Badges program was agreed upon for the Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond Badges (both pins and patches), which will go into production now and be available for NAC’s to buy directly from the FAI e-Shop by the end of March or beginning of April, 2006.

Scoring, Ranking and CIVL Software Report of this working group actions and meeting is detailed above under the “Scoring and ranking” headline.

Environmental Affairs This new Working Group is building a network of correspondents. Was underlined the necessity to include environmental concern in the way we manage our sport in general and competition in particular: we must respect the environment, but we have a right to use it. Was also underlined the very tight link between environment matters and the survival of our flying sites. We need to counterbalance nature protecting organisations and to get support by authorities in this matter.

Section 7 The subcommittee centralized, re-read and finalized all contributions.

Major Proposals to the Plenary

The German, Icelandic, Japanese and Norwegian proposals were all considered by the technical subcommittees. They were then withdrawn from the main plenary agenda by their delegates, as some elements of these proposals were agreed and other work continues on others in both the technical subcommittees and the Scoring and Software working group. The Portuguese proposal about team sizes in paragliding Category 1 events was not withdrawn despite some elements of their proposal being met by subcommittee proposals. After debate and amendment, this resulted in the changes to minimum pilot numbers and re-allocation procedures mentioned earlier. The Australian proposal about scoring of stopped tasks was also taken to the Plenary despite being voted down in the subcommittee. It failed again in a plenary vote.

Awards

The award of the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Diploma to Alfio Caronti, first European hang gliding pilot, founder of Icaro, was agreed for his flying achievement and his contribution to the development of hang gliding.

Elections

The following officers were all re-elected: President - Flip Koetsier (Netherlands) Vice Presidents; John Aldridge (UK), Agust Gudmundsson (Iceland), Scott Torkelsen (Denmark) and Jim Zeiset (USA) Secretary - Leonard Grigorescu (Romania) Treasurer - Stéphane Malbos (France)

The next CIVL Plenary will be in Talloires, France, on February 2 to 4 , 2007.