Rules

1. INTRODUCTION

a. Goals

With this competition, built on a new format, we want to develop sharing and friendship among pilots.

We are convinced that the best environment for a pilot to progress is based on Leagues’ teams. We can find this dynamic also in associations, or federal training structures, as we can find in Paragliding World Cups.

The training is based on repetition and volume. Many structures already organize training weeks. This competition will be a gathering of teams of pilots, confirmed competitors as well as amateurs.

So we created “Le Trophée des Équipes”.

b. Race

In order to motivate competition pilots, we want to promote distance-oriented competition to better use the potential of each flyable day.

A weeklong race is a long format that promotes better learning for pilots and better management of the weather hazard. It is also a more interesting return on investment for the pilots.

c. Concept

“Le Trophée des Équipes” has two objectives:

  1. promote the team spirit in competition
  2. return of the “free flight” spirit in competition

For this, “Le Trophée des Équipes” uses simple means:

  1. Reward and promote team results
  2. Reward a better use of daily flight conditions

2. ACTIONS AND PARTICIPANTS

a. Registration

The event is part of the FFVL Sport events.

Participants are groups of 4 pilots freely gathered. The competition welcomes up to 100 pilots; ideally 25 teams.

Each team will have a name, typically the name of it’s region of origin or its sponsor. Individual registrations are made on the FFVL website. In the free text field, each competitor enters the name of its team.

All pilots are accepted; no qualification level is required. However, each team has a capital 1,900 points maximum by adding each pilot points from “Classement Permanent” (as at the 1st of January 2016).

An average 475 points per registered pilot will help constitute teams in sport category, as the 100th in the ranking has about 475 FPRS points without excluding non-priority pilots.

b. Competition

Among each team, a “captain” will be chosen to ensure the communication with the organization and the Meet Director (DE = “Directeur d’Epreuve”).

The organization provides retrieve to ensure safe return for everybody. They will be positioned at key points. Pilots freely and individually decide to take-off, and how they manage their task and their track. They manage their choices for their own safety.

Pilots can prepare their flight with their team, fly as a team, manage their retrieve themselves, debrief and maybe more. Each team is free to use it’s own retrieve.

All pilots must have a radio set on the safety frequency given during the briefing by the meet director (DE).

3. MEET DIRECTOR

a. Briefing

The Meet Director (DE) conducts a general briefing the day before the first task (Saturday).

The Meet Director conducts daily the first briefing, at a fixed time each morning to the Haedquarters (or “PC course”), around 9am or 10am according to the site. The purpose is:

  1. Reward the winning team of the previous day.
  2. Provide detailed weather information.
  3. Decide whether the day is flyable or not.

b. Tasks

Either during the first morning briefing, or in a second briefing later oat take-off, the Meet Director defines the type of task:

The task types are: Elapsed time or Free distance tasks. It is made clear at registration that a Race to Goal task will be exceptional.

The distance in the case of an Elapsed time task or the area of evolution in the case of a free distance task will be as large as possible.

The possibility for multiple take-offs during the window has to be defined at briefing. The Meet Director also defines the tasks timing:

  1. take-off window as early as possible (10:30 or 11am), the meet director will held the possibility to close the window for safety
  2. start very close to the opening window
  3. Task deadline (2 hours before sunset to organize any search and rescue if needed)

c. Security

Check-in before take-off is mandatory. A tracker will be provided by the organization on the take-off, use of the tracker is made mandatory throughout the task (from take-off until the return to the headquarters).

Pilots who do not take a livetracker are deemed not to be flying the task and will not score for the day.

Once the pilots are airborne, the meet Director (DE) may decide to stop the task, mostly in case of a general threat (Cumulonimbus, strong wind coming in…). The meet Director will put emphasis on security and pilots’ individual responsibility to ensure their own safety given the widespread area of the race. This responsibility is shared with each team captain.

4. CLASSIFICATION AND REGULATION

a. Principle

In this competition each pilot has an individual score, it is used to calculate his team’s final score. However all communication should focus on the team results.

b. Individual ranking

The individual ranking is provided by Cargol and compliant with FFVL distance competition Rules.

c. Team ranking

  1. Task scoring for each team : To promote the idea of cooperative flight and team spirit, the team result is calculated by adding the individual scores of the second and third pilot of the team in the task.
  2. Overall ranking : Very simply, the team overall ranking is established by adding the daily results of each team. “Le Trophée des équipes” does not use any discarding system.