This last weekend the CIVL Sprog workgroup was supposed to have made a decision regarding testing sprogs at the Worlds in Laragne. Dennis wrote on Friday:

One proposal is to have a two degree allowance and penalties and the second my recent one a public display of every pilot's sprog settings and no real penalties.

The Women\'s and Rigid Wing pre-Worlds is taking place at Tegelberg in Germany. It started on Sunday. We should have more news soon about how sprog testing is going there.

Comp pilots express themselves on sprog measurements: http://www.dhv.de/typo/HG_Top-Piloten_zur_S.5379.0.html

Here is a proposal from Klaus Taenzler http://ozreport.com/emailer.php?toName=klaustaenzler&code=6o6p6175737461656r7n6p65722061742064687620646s74206465 who writes (but not to me):

SPROG MEASUREMENT

The limits: In order to ensure that gliders comply with the general airworthiness rules in FAI Sporting Code Section 7A the following will be applied: All Flex-Gliders (Class FAI 1) must have their sprog set to the certified angle. The penalty line is –2 degrees. A placard fixed to the glider must identify the glider. For a prototype the pilot must present a datasheet from the glider manufacturer with the sprog settings in degree. Gliders without any pitch-test according to either HGMA, BHPA or DHV standards are not allowed and can not register.

The procedure: The measurement instrument in use is a “Spi-Tronic Pro 360° Digital Level” with a measuring length of 153 mm and a display indicating one position after the decimal point. The accuracy of the measurement instrument is 0.1° horizontal / 0.2° vertical, the repeatability is +- 0.1°. The measurement is carried out at the fixing point of the sprog wire with the centre of the fixing point as centre of the measuring length. If the sprog has a kink or a reinforcement, the measurement is done in front of the kink and reinforcement towards the leading edge at the parallel tube section. Measurements with VG fully tight (100%).

Official measurements have to be done during the registration day. The pilot whose glider measurements were within the set limits will get a paper with which he can go to registration. Without this paper he cannot register.

During the competition random checks can be made for the first three pilots in goal and arbitrarily by the official measuring team, picking the gliders, which are obviously too low. To avoid stress for the pilots, measurements during the competition should take place after the flights in the landing zone. (After a landing crash which affect the glider's structure no measurement can be done.) A glider that is measured too low is not allowed to take off again before the settings are corrected. Measuring of the corrected sprog settings by the official measuring team can be done on the landing spot or on take off the next flying day, but not later than the first briefing. It’s the responsibility of the pilot to get measured. If a glider's sprog is measured too low, the penalty will be 20% of the winner’s score of the last flown task. This penalty will be repeated every time this glider is measured too low a next time.

The official measurement does not tell anything about the airworthiness of the glider regarding the pitch of the glider. It is a field measurement that is done only to verify if the glider is within the given competition rules. It is not a good idea to set the sprogs close to the -2 degree limit. For example Corinna had her glider adjusted to the limit (- 2 degrees) during the German Open (she ranked 4th overall!) Then, for the registration of the pre-world she got a new measurement (after a whack) and had to raise her sprogs 4 mm, I think this was due to the unavoidable measurement variation.

Has the Wills Wing T2C (not the T2) been pitch tested and its sprog settings (2 degrees lower than T2) been certified?

I wonder how much of an unavoidable measurement variation we are talking about? 0.1°?