The World Games 2013: Get to know the air sports athletes by visiting their profiles

The profile of all athletes participating to the Paragliding Accuracy and Parachuting Canopy Piloting events of the World Games 2013 is now available on the FAI website.

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What’s up in May 2013?

Guido Gerhmann passed away. Our deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

The 2013 version of Section 7 for Hang gliding and Paragliding have been published and are available on the Document chapter of our website. Somehow the Paragliding Accuracy, Records and badges, Aerobatic S7 are still to be published.

Pilot selection for the coming Paragliding World championships in Sopot, Bulgaria, came to an end. 150 pilots from 39 countries should participate.

FAME, the FAI Sports Marketing and Events Company, FAME, the FAI Sports Marketing and Events Company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with CIVL. Both will to create project teams, with financial backing, to facilitate the creation and presentation of hang gliding and aerobatic events.

Important and successful lobbying was done for FAI to improve its financial organization. Commissions will have a much better access to their accounts, now separate, hence will know at anytime where they stand. CIVL will test/spearhead the new organisation. 

Committee are exchanging extensively in our Basecamp working area…

• Paragliding: new CIVL-EN Competition Class (CECC) requirements; new end of speed section; lifting the suspension of the 2011 Competition Class; how to get a better WPRS…
• Hang gliding: revising the Airspace rules and penalties; revising the certified helmet rule…
• Accuracy: judges and their training…
• Aerobatic: new manoeuvres, altitude limitation, natural/unnatural tricks, scoring…
• Software: Beta testing, WPRS, build systems, PG ESS…
• Record and Badges: for aerobatic and accuracy…

Implementing the new CECC: PG Committee's proposals

The implementation of a new CIVL-EN Competition Class (CECC) in Paragliding Category 1 events from January 1st 2015 was voted by the 2013 CIVL Plenary. All gliders flying in World and Continental championships will have to follow the requirements of the CECC.

The procedures and requirements of the new CECC are quite different from what the original Paragliding Subcommittee (now called Paragliding Committee: PG-C) proposal had defined. The original proposal also provided room for adjustments, which somehow was forgotten in the final text.

The PG-C believes that such adjustments are absolutely necessary if we want the CECC to fulfil its aim, that basically is to be a reliable element in “safe, fair and satisfying” Category 1 events.

Since the 2013 Plenary, the PG-C has been working on CECC adjustments, in line with the policy defined in the 2012 and 2013 Plenary:  CIVL expect that the CECC requirements will be included in a new EN certification. This new EN should be adapted to real competition flying situations. It should also be “light” enough so all size of gliders can be certified at affordable cost and its requirements can be revised every 2 years.

The PG-C is fully aware that it has no control whatsoever on the administrations that implement EN or on the content of the new EN, if it is actually implemented. It can only hope that its proposals will be heard so a future Plenary might agree to replace the CECC by the new EN.

 The PG-C proposes to modify the CIVL-EN Competition Class Requirements document as follow (in Bold). Our comments are in italic.

HG pre-Euro on the way

José Manuel (Juaki) Sánchez García, co-organizer, is proud to announce that for July 2014 the 19th FAI European Hang Gliding Championship will take part in Arangoiti - Navarra – Spain. Therefore this year the test event, Pre-European HG championship in Class 1, is ran.

The dates for the Pre-Euros are in August, 2013 from 12th to the 18th both inclusive.

The website that is holding all the information of the event is www.arangoiti2014.com

This year is run an International Open, tagged as a category 2 event in the CIVL calendar, that is open to all pilots. The entries are already available at the web site in the Registration section.

All are invited to join and fly in one of the best flying sites of Spain.

For any further detailed information please contact Juaki.

Guido Gerhmann dies in a plane crash

Guido Gerhmann, one of the most talented hang gliding pilot (he was the 1998 World champion) died in a plane crash early this month. He was 38.

His friend Corinna Schwiegershausen, wrote... No words can describe our loss, this darkness – at least it is raining today in Munich, so my tears blend into the grey sky. One of the finest, most talented pilots in the world, one of my friends for half of my life, the sunshine of the flying community, left this world on his final flight yesterday. Guido died when he tried to emergency land his BD5-J south of Gnadenwald in Inntal in the afternoon of the 1st of May 2013.

It was not a stunt flight, not a daring manouvre, no weather problem - Guido simply wanted to fly the plane back to Salzburg when he experienced a technical problem. Knowing him, knowing the plane, and knowing the area, it seems to me that he tried until the last moment to cope with the technical problem and to make sure that noone else gets hurt. He could have bailed out of the jet with his parachute, with the possibility of the plane crashing uncontrollably and hurting other people. Instead Guido chose to steer it into an empty field where he crashed and died. Not a lack of competence – he was one with his wings and he knew every single field in that area. A lack of luck in that very moment caused his death.

Guido, you physically managed to not hurt anybody else, but you left your family, your loved ones, your friends and the whole world inside and out of aviation in mere shock and pain beyond words. Everybody adored you, not just for your aviation skills but also for your shining personality. And you were as modest as can be. You were aware that you lived your dream and appreciated it. Your legend will live on with anybody who´s life has been touched by your inspiring enthusiasm, freedom and love for anything that flies!

Little brother, I know you have good company in the eternal sky. Some day we will race together again!

Paragliding Worlds deadline coming soon!

The entries deadline for the coming Paragliding World Championships is arriving fast! With 8 days to go we have just 85 pilots and 15 nation teams entered in total. Please hurry to submit entries!

New 2012 FAI Annual Report just out !

The FAI has released a new publication, the 2012 FAI Annual Report, designed to present the most notable achievements, developments, facts and challenges of the past year. It is meant to be a reference book for all those who are interested in air sports events and the FAI.

It includes an overview of each air sport, lists of competition results, awards and records, photographs and a lot of other useful information.

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Nicky Moss is new CIVL Competition Coordinator

Early this year CIVL opened a position as Competition Coordinator to replace Brian Harris who held this position during 4 years (Thanks Brian, you did a great job!).

We were pleasantly surprised to see how many highly qualified persons applied. Having all the good persons to select from was not an easy task and took longer time than we wanted. We sincerely want to thank all those who applied for their dedication to our sport and for their patience during the selection process.

CIVL is now pleased to announce Nicky Moss as the new CIVL Competition Coordinator.

Nicky Moss is well known Paragliding competition pilot and competition organizer. We welcome her and expect much of her for CIVL.

Anti-doping FAQs for competitors and event organisers

To complete the anti-doping information already available on the FAI website, the FAI has created two FAQs for competitors and event organisers to facilitate a better knowledge and understanding of all matters relating to anti-doping.

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Pilots selected for PG Accuracy World Games

Could you land your paraglider on a coin? Could you do it over and over again in all wind conditions and under pressure from the best paraglider pilots in the world?