What’s up in April 2013?

Right after the Plenary, the new CIVL Bureau met and defined a global organization and strategy for the coming months.

Three weeks were necessary to write the Plenary minutes plus annexes and published them on this website.

The Committees, Working Group and Officers positions were finalized and all started working on their own agenda. This work is done mainly on Basecamp, a project management tool. We switched from Basecamp Classic to a new and quite different version of the software.

The Local Regulations for the 7^th World Paragliding Accuracy 2013 Championships were finalized and published.

The athletes for the Paragliding Accuracy event of the World Games 2013 were selected.

The helmet and harness lists were updated.

Last but not least, a memorandum of understanding was signed by CIVL and FAI Air Sports Marketing & Events SA (FAME) to promote aerobatic events.

(Our photo: working on Basecamp)

CECC on the move

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 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 part 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.

Stéphane Malbos, CIVL PG-C Chairman

(Photo Martin Scheel, azoom.ch)

World XC Online Contest 2012 Winners

Martin Bülher, Nicole Fedele (our picture), Michael Müller, Andrea Raninger, Johann Tockner, Birgit Schwab, Krzysztof Grzyb, Christine Aichner, Toni Raumauf, Euclides Robert Neto...  They won it! More on the World XC Online Contest here.

CIVL PG and HG XC Scoring Project

CIVL Software Working Group is working on a  proper and (almost) complete definition of our scoring system, as it is defined in the rules (S7A and S7B) and implemented in FS. It has produced a document meant to be the basis for all future work on the scoring formula, since only if things are defined at this level can they then be properly implemented in software.

The document has been distributed throughout the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Committees, and is now published on CIVL's web site. The Software WG welcome all suggestions. Please contact its Chair, Joerg Ewald, here. 

For 2013, the  Software Working Group recommends splitting this document up in two: one for Hang Gliding and one for Paragliding, and introducing them as stand-along appendices to S7A and B, but is open to other solutions on how to use it.

Plenary 2013 -What's up in Paragliding Accuracy

Reviewing the bid for the next World Championships, upcoming Category 1 events, and putting the finishing touches to Accuracy records, dominated the discussions in the recent PG Accuracy Committee Open meeting.

Read more...

7th FAI World Paragliding Accuracy Championships Local Regulations published.

The Local Regulations for the 7th FAI World Paragliding Accuracy Championships Local Regulations in Babin do, Bjelasnica mountain, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 17th to 25th August 2013 are now published here. 

Plenary 2013 - Minutes Published

The 2013 CIVL Plenary Minutes and annexes are published in the Document chapter of this website (Meeting/Plenary/2013/Minutes). Enjoy!

Plenary 2013 – What’s up in Hang Gliding

The Hang Gliding Committee met at the 2013 Plenary in Lausanne last month to review recent Category 1 competitions, sanction upcoming Category 1 events and work through a few issues of interest to hang glider pilots. 

The 15th  FAI Hang Gliding World Championships in Forbes finished up at the end of January raising a few issues regarding glider certification and sprog measuring.  There has been some concern about pilots flying uncertified gliders and/or prototypes in Category 1 events and the fairness issues there given that these gliders are not allowed in Category 1.  The Committee spent some time focusing on how to better enforce this rule by gathering general glider measurements from manufacturers so the information can be used by stewards and meet officials to check against gliders where there is a protest or question about whether a glider is actually uncertified or a prototype.  The Committee will also work on determining penalties for violation of this rule.  Currently, penalties are set in the local regulations but the Committee would like to set standard penalties.

On the sprog measuring front, generally the system as it has evolved is worked nicely – and worked particuarly well in Forbes.  The Committee would like to have more Stewards that are capable of measuring and/or someone in the organization that is capable of measuring.  The Committee will also be working toward getting manufactures to include sprog measurements in their glider manuals.

In terms of upcoming Category 1 events, there was only a single timely bid for the 2015 Worlds from Mexico (our picture).  After review of the bid and discussion of concerns about goal fields and security in general for foreigners traveling in Mexico, the bid was unanimously approved.  The 2015 World will be held in Valle de Bravo, Mexico in March 2015.

After a bit of grumbling and difficulty enforcing the EN966 certified helmet rules, many competition pilots remain unsatisfied with the standard for hang gliding helmets.  After meeting with a few pilots at Forbes to discuss the standard, the Committee has decided to form a helmet task force made up of competition pilots with technical knowledge who can research whether there is a standard that is more appropriate or at least as appropriate as EN966. 

There was much discussion in the combined hang gliding and paragliding Committees meeting about mandatory live tracking for all Category 1 events.  Most of the hang gliding Committee members felt strongly that live tracking should not be mandatory for hang gliding events because there is less of a need in hang gliding and because it would make a World or Continental meet impossible for nations where live tracking technology isn’t yet fully developed and usable (e.g. the US and Australia).  The decision of the combined Committees was that live tracking would only be mandatory for paragliding Category 1 events. 

The upcoming Category 1 World Championship in the Sport Class raised the issue of the current definition of a Sport Class pilot.  There was much discussion about whether any pilot flying a kingposted glider should be allowed to participate or if it should be limited to pilots who have never participated in an Open Class Category 1 event.  Some feel the Manfred Ruhmors and Jonny Durands of the world should be allowed to participate on Sport Class gliders in order to encourage participation and to spotlight their manufacturers’ Sport Class models.  Others feel Sport Class should be limited to pilots that have not or could not participate in the Open Class World events.  No final decision was reached, but Committee members will be informally polling potential participants and manufacturers and a ruling will be made prior to the 2014 Sport Class Worlds in Annecy.

Oyvind Ellefsen (Norway) was again elected to chair the hang gliding committee.  Appointed members are Dennis Pagen (USA),  Lorezo Labrador (UK), Jamie Shelden (USA), Klaus Taenzler (Germany), Flavio Tebaldi (Italy), Gordon Rigg (UK), Koos de Keizer (Netherlands), Niels Joergen Askirk (Denmark), Raymond Caux (France), Scott Barrett (Australia), Thomas Koller (Switzerland).

Plenary 2013 - What’s up in Paragliding?

The Paragliding Committee came up at the 2013 Plenary with no less than 28 items on its agenda. 43 delegates, alternate delegates and observers took part in its Open Meeting.

The main subject of discussion was the implementation of a new Competition Class. This has been reported on in a previous News on this website. The minutes and annexes will detail the different steps that led to the Plenary decision.

Associated to this new Class, a new End of Speed Section with altitude bonus was adopted. The original proposal was amended to accommodate special conditions, altitude measurement issues, etc.

Last November, the CIVL Bureau made mandatory the use of a second rescue parachute. The Bureau decision was amended as follows: “As an alternative to two reserve parachutes, a single reserve parachute easily deployable by either hand may be used.” This means: deployable in all conditions, even degraded flying conditions (spin, etc.). The Plenary also allowed a 2,000€ budget for the development of an automatic deployment reserve system.

The Pilot Declaration Form implemented last year, which purpose is to make pilots aware of their skill levels (or lack thereof), was updated. The Paragliding Committee will now work on a new IPPI Competition level or Super Licence or their equivalent, to define skills and procedure that could be made mandatory for pilots to enter Category 1 events from 2015 on. Probably one of the most important issue the new PG Committee will have to work on.

Many proposals, done in conjunction with the Software working group, were studied and not many passed, needing more work on their formula or consequences. Still it was agreed that GAP will become GAP PG 201x or GAP HG 201x and that the parameters that can be modified by the competition organisers will be fewer and clearer. It was also agreed that there should be some formalisation of how new features and software releases are tested prior to voting; they should be scheduled for introduction in a Cat 1 championship the following calendar year and be thoroughly tested in Cat 2 competitions in the interim.

Procedures were revised to allow the Committee to be more proactive in the review of bids for World and Continental Championships.

Live tracking is now mandatory in all PG Cat 1 events.

Joint Asia-Oceania Championships should be allowed soon. The aim is to help the development of these regions. In parallel, the Committee will study how to make the WPRS less Eurocentric.

The 2015 World Championship will take place in Roldanillo, Colombia from 10th to 25th January.

Stéphane Malbos (France) was elected to Chair the PG Committee. Members were appointed later. They are: Luc Armant (France), Hamish Barker (Australia), Raymond Caux (France), Josh Cohn (USA), Goran Dimiskovski (Macedonia), Joerg Ewald (Switzerland), Brett Hazlett (Canada), Didier Mathurin (France), Martin Scheel (Switzerland).

Plenary 2013 - Follow-up: New Competition Class