WXC – Fly locally, compete globally

The Worldwide XC online Contest (WXC) now has official FAI status following a successful 2 year trial.

Taking advantage of its unique position, CIVL has created the ‘official’ global online contest, allowing all hang glider and paraglider pilots worldwide to see their flights scored and ranked in a single online contest. The contest (http://wxc.fai.org) opened formally on 1st October 2010.

The website shows the consolidated results from the current 8 networked contests, including national contests in France, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland, Germany and Slovenia as well as the Paragliding Forum and XCC servers.

Free of charge
The WXC is essentially a network of online contests, completely free of charge to pilots, and requiring no additional effort on their part. Typically, a pilot submits his flights to his chosen online contest. If this online contest is registered and networked to the WXC, his flight will automatically be submitted to the WXC for scoring. Pilots cannot submit flights directly to the WXC. They can only be submitted through an existing online contest which is signed up to the WXC.

If your club or nation does not have an online contest but you would like to participate in the WXC, join one of the international contests that are networked to the WXC. Also available is open source (free) software, enabling technologically minded pilots to set up their own server with any set of local rules.

Sign up now!
All established online contests are encouraged to join WXC. If your national or regional contest is not yet networked to WXC, then email the organiser and request that they sign up!

The basic philosophy of WXC is to interconnect all online XC servers around the world to create a World XC online contest. It is designed to complement existing contests, which will continue to operate according to their local rules. The WXC allows pilots to compare their flights across geographic regions and to compete internationally. Another unique feature of the WXC is the ability to see at a glance, cross country flying activity on any given day, anywhere in the world. See where the longest flights were made on the day you flew a mega-distance!

FAI diploma
Although online contests may have different rules for scoring, they all rely on a GPS tracklog as the proof of flight. To allow all flights to be compared fairly, WXC re-scores every flight submitted according to WXC rules (see:http://wxc.fai.org). The 2011 WXC will close on 30 September 2011. The winners will be announced online and they will receive FAI diplomas.

The idea behind the WXC, like many regional contests, is to encourage and motivate pilots to fly more often, fly further and to undertake more challenging tasks, such as out and returns and triangles. To further this aim, the next planned development of the WXC is to provide automatic notification of flights that qualify for an FAI badge. For further information on the requirements of the Delta (hang gliding) and Eagle (paragliding) bronze, silver, gold and diamond badges, see: www.fai.org/hang_gliding/awards/badges