FAI Secretariat <<email>> writes:

The CIVL approved Local Regulations for the 17th FAI World Hang Gliding Championships 2009 in Laragne, France, have now been published on the FAI website at http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/LocalRegulations.

From the regs:

1. 1.1 Each NAC is invited initially to submit a team of up to four pilots (and this may comprise any combination of males and females) by 31 January 2009 A deposit of 100euros per pilot must be received by this date to reserve the places.

1. 1.2 If the total number of pilots registered, with deposits paid, at 31 January 2009 does NOT exceed 120, an extra allocation of 1 pilot per team shall be offered to nations, in descending order of the nation WPRS ranking (on 1 February 2009) to bring the total maximum number of pilots to 130. In this allocation process France, the host nation, will be treated as equal to the nation ranked highest in the WPRS.

1. 1.3 Pilots entered in the extra allocation process will not form part of the national team until all nations who entered a full team of 4 pilots initially have been offered a further place.

1. 1.4 Any places that subsequently become available will be offered according to this allocation process until the allocation deadline of 20 May 2009. A second round of allocation will only be offered if the first round results in fewer than 120 pilots entered.

1. 1.5 The maximum number of pilots entered by each nation shall not exceed 6 and the maximum team size shall not exceed 6.

10. 5 Early start (16.5.7.3) Where a track log shows that the pilot started before the first permitted start time he/she shall be given a time penalty equal to 10 times the amount of time between his/her actual start time and the first permitted start time; this time penalty shall be added to his/her total task time. The maximum amount of early start for this rule to be applied is 5 minutes; any pilot starting earlier than 5 minutes before the first permitted start time shall be scored to minimum distance only.

Doesn't say that the early starters time will be shifted back. I would suggest that the system apparently invented by Wesley Hill and used here at the Bogong Cup and at the 2009 Forbes meet would be more appropriate.

http://www.xcflight.com

6. 9 Start gates: Pilots can start flying the task at any time before the first start gate time but will be penalised. The amount of minutes started before the first gate time will be doubled and added onto your start and finish times. This is to limit the effect on arrival and departure bonuses.

E. g If first gate time is 13.00 with 15 min start intervals

Pilot A starts at 12.43 (so 17 min x 2 adds 34 mins to the time)

So Pilot A start time will be 13.17

Due to Start Intervals this will become 13.15

Pilot A’s tracklog will be shifted by 34 min’s.

GAP parameters: Minimum distance: 10km, Nominal distance: 60km, Nominal time: 2 hours, Percentage at goal – 30%

Yet again designed to have 1000 point days. Nominal distance should be 100 km.

10. 4 Scoring a stopped task. A task which has been stopped but not cancelled shall be scored if at least 2 (two) hours have elapsed since the first valid start is taken by a competing pilot or at least 1 pilot has achieved goal. The score back time is equal to the time between start gate windows or a minimum of 15 minutes in the case of a race task (5.5.8) and will be applied to all pilots whether in goal or not.

I thought that they were trying to get this cut down to at least one hour.

11 PENALTIES (5.8)

11. 1 Cloud flying by competitors is illegal and un-sportsmanlike. Competitors who fly into clouds will incur a penalty for the day. A pilot is deemed to have flown into a cloud if he/she is observed by a meet official or by a nearby air marshal going into and disappearing into a cloud, or: if 2 pilots from 2 different countries/teams witness the accused going up into the cloud and completely disappearing from their view, and attest to this fact in writing, and if barograph or 3D GPS traces from the accused show the accused significantly above nearby pilots at the time of the incident.

If the accused cannot produce a barograph trace for that day or a 3D GPS track log, only 2 witness statements are required. It is highly recommended for all competitors to fly with a recording barograph. Witnesses should press Mark/Enter when they witness a pilot going into a cloud. Any pilot found to be deliberately supplying false information about another pilot with respect to cloud flying will be removed from the competition.

It is recommended that a pilot sucked into cloud who did not have the intention of gaining an advantage should perform a figure 8 manoeuvre once out of the cloud and fly back along the course line until the extra height gained is lost before continuing on course so that other pilots can see it had not been intended.

S7 penalties apply for verified infractions. For the first infraction the pilot will score zero for the day and a further infraction will result in the pilot being excluded from the remainder of the competition (2.17.8 & 16.5.8).

As taken from our rules at the 2007 Worlds in Texas, but not the penalties which seem to be draconian and therefore not likely to be enforced. We called for 10%, 30% and then 0.

11. 2 Controlled Airspace: Pilots are expected to familiarise themselves with all controlled airspaces and any competition airspace limits in the vicinity of course lines from the maps and information supplied. The onus is on the pilot at all times to prove that he/she has not infringed on airspace.

The rules don't state what software or which airspace files will be used to determine airspace infringements. The onus should be on the scorekeeper to have valid software and valid airspace maps. And to download the airspace maps to the flight instruments.

Competition Altitude limits will be shown on the competition maps (does not apply to any Start Gate height limits which may be used).

Altitude will be checked using GPS altitude taken from the pilot’s track log and checked using the scoring software. GPS dump will only pass GPS altitude from the track to the scoring software. It ignores barometric altitude. It is the pilot’s responsibility to establish the difference between GPS altitude and the barometric altitude of the instruments he/she flies with.

Primary units will be meters. S7 penalties will apply for violations. These penalties will not apply to any start gate height limits set.

Aviation uses feet, the last time I checked, for altitude and all the sectionals will use feet for airspace. This section doesn't seem to conform with other sections in the local rules regarding who's GPSes will be check (all or top twenty?). Again no discussion about whether Brian, the scorekeeper, will be downloading airspace maps to our GPSes, and how he will deal with software discrepancies.

Also, GPS altitude is not defined here. Is it the altitude found in the KML trace that is reserved for GPS altitude when a GPS is downloaded by GPSDump, or is it the actual GPS altitude?