midtoad’s mess.ages
excellence in creative mediocrity

In parts 1-3 of this series, I described the overhaul of the CIVL Badge system. The definitive text and full details of the system are of course contained in the Sporting Code, Section 7D, which will become effective May 1st of this year. In this article, I want to describe some of the other changes that you will see in the new release of S7D. The full text will be available shortly on the CIVL website, after review by John Aldridge.

The badges and records subcommittee, under the leadership of CIVL V-P Scott Torkelsen from Denmark, undertook the review of the badge system, but also reviewed all of S7D itself, with a view to streamlining and simplifying GPS usage. In this task, a number of people were involved: Oyvind Ellefsen from Norway, �gúst Guðmundsson from Iceland, Martin Henry from Canada, and myself. (Hmm, all Nordic countries, what a coincidence!). Martin was awarded two FAI world records late last year in the rigid wing category, and as a result of his records chase he has gained intimate knowledge of some of the contradictions and confusions still remaining in S7D, as regards GPS usage. Here are the major changes developed by this subcommittee, and approved by the Plenary.

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In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we looked at the problems with the current badge levels, and what pilots around the world are telling us (through their flying) would make a fairer set of levels for these badges.

Thanks to OLC, we now have a much better undertanding of how far pilots fly day-to-day. How should we relate that to badge requirements? Well, we start with the principle that the badges should rise in difficulty from easy to moderate to challenging to difficult. That’s not what we have today, at least for hang gliders (easy - moderate - ridiculous - damn near impossible). The idea is, if we can agree in a general way on how hard the badges should be, and how accessible they should be, it will be easier to agree on specific values for the distances and other requirements.

The badge and records committee put forward to the CIVL Bureau, and then to the Plenary, the following set of principles to guide the development of the new badge levels:

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In part one of this series, we looked at how the existing CIVL badge system is broken. In this article, we look at what pilots say about fair badge levels. We do that by studying how far pilots actually fly, not how far some wishful thinkers would like them to fly. And for this information, we turn to the OLC (On Line Contest).

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At the CIVL meeting at Panajachel, Guatemala, delegates voted to revise the CIVL Badge system effective May 1st of this year. Why did they do this?

We’re been flying hang gliders for over 30 years, and paragliders for 20 (in round numbers). We have had a badge system in place for many years. There are (some estimates say) about 300,000 hang glider and paraglider pilots in the world today.

And the number of FAI gold badges issued?
Rigid wings: 0
Flex wings: 4
Paragliders: 24
Sailplanes: 6500 (including 3 diamonds on top of the gold badge).

Clearly, there’s something wrong with our program.

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Here’s the view the CIVL delegates got as they left Panajachel on Sunday afternoon:

CIVL Plenary Day Two

14. further discussion on safety director. Proposal by Dennis, Xavier, Klaus.

- a separate safety director (with no other respons) mut be nominated by the organiser and accepted by the CIVL Bureau. The suitability of the SD shall be reviewed by the Steward after the pre-meet. The bureau may require a replacement SD.
- the SD is responsible for monitoring all aspects of safety, including but not limited to wind speed, presence of thunderstorms, other potentially dangerous conditions. Further duties are to monitor in-air crowding at take-off, presence of dangerous air traffic. He may also prevent pilots with unsafe equipment.
- SD has responsibility to attend the task advisory committee , monitor setting of goals, routes. SD shall attend the safety committee and accept input from safety committee. SD shall collect accident reports and discuss accidents with the Steward and present conclusions at the pilot briefing. He is also responsible for checking that all pilots have reported back.
- SD may stop a task at any point for reasons of safety. Any decision taken by the SD will be reported to the Jury president.
- the SD must have knowledge and experience of the site being flown and ideally must have experience in appropriate competitions.
- bids for Cat. 1 must be approved by appropriate wrt safety. To be approved, the organiser must have experience at organising safe and successful international comps.
- these rules apply to Brazil PG world comp in a few weeks.

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CIVL Plenary Meeting
Day One, Feb. 18th

1. meeting opens.
2. 27 countries in attendance (including 5-6 proxies). introductions of all countries
4. Agenda approved.
5. Last year’s minutes approved.
6. Olivier read his president’s report commenting on his years as president
7. Max Bishop president report: new FAI president Pierre —-, a power pilot who is trying to strengthen links to ICAO through appointment of Mary-Anne Stevens (Aero Club of Canada pres.) as delegate to ICAO. The FAI Centenary will be in Paris in October: all pilots are welcome - register on the FAI website. Accident rate in our sport is unacceptable to Max: we are the only sport that has fatalities in its comps. Poland was proposing to hold an FAI Centenary Games, but it’s likely not to go ahead.

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HG Competition Sub committee minutes:
(As I only attended the initial portion of the meeting, these notes were kindly provided to me by Paula Howitt, and are unofficial until reviewed by the Bureau).

1 Full co-operation between the Steward and Jury president: Jury handbook
The only person who has authority to stop the competition is the Jury President. The steward should work closely with the JP to bring to their attention any points that may require action especially regarding safety.

2 Information of conditions in flight with 3 pilots in the safety committee: S7
Already in HG S7

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CIVL Hang Gliding Committee
Friday Feb 18, 9:00

- list of items to be discussed is per Annex 4.

- rules for next world championship proposed.

CIVL Aerobatics Committee
Friday Feb 18, 9:00
Chairman: Dennis Pagen

- presentation for 1st world aerobatic championship, to be held near Geneva. Aug 16-27th, 2006. Events: HG Solo, Paraglider solo, PG session. Team size 4 pilots + 2 women. up to 60,000 spectators expected. Landing rafts to be used for HG in finals (dry ground for preliminaries). Entry fee of 300 Euros, or 500 Euros for syncho as well. Includes lodging.
- pilots must be able to do spin, loop, and wingover.
- Aug. 17-21, 2005 for pre-meet. Fee is only 25 Euros per day.
- flying is done early in morning and in evening.
- website info: http://www.redbull-vertigo.com
- short video presented; event looks like fun and professionally organised.

- I left this committe in order to attend the PG committee. I will look for minutes from someone else. (Later: I got some unofficial notes from Paula Howitt. See separate article on this topic).

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(second draft here, since my original draft disappeared suddenly)… I’m here in Panajachel, Guatemala ( map ), for the CIVL Plenary meeting. This town of 11,000 is located a long 3-hour drive from the capital along the N shores of Lake Atitlán at an elevation of 1500m. On the other side of the 13 km wide lake are three volcanos, Atitlán (the tallest, at 3500m), Tolimán and the smaller San Pedro. The lake is surrounded by highlands about 2500m high.

There are lots of accomodation options, from camping, to $5/night pension-style rooms, to $80 resort-type hotels. I’m staying in the Tzan Juyu, dating back to the 1940s and clearly having seen better times. It’s great because it has no radio or TV, and a superb view of the lake. It also has a landing spot on the edge of the lake, adequate for PGs and smallish for HGs. You can glide across a small bay to this LZ from a ramp (for HGs) or slope (for PGs) 400m up the side of very steep mountains on the road out of town.

The picture below shows the view from the Tzan Juyu hotel. Not too shabby!

The main launch spot is 3 km W of town via an 18km winding paved road, thence onto private property via payment of a 10 Quetzales (about $2 Cdn.) fee. The takeoff spot is a steep clearing on a treed hillside large enough for one glider at a time to launch, though several could set up at once. It sits 500m AGL. You can’t see the LZ from launch, as it sits in a bowl, but you can easily glide to in a PG. The main LZ is where the dried San Francisco River meets the lake, and is easily large enough for both PG and HG. If you can’t get to it, there’s always the beach.

In the picture below, you can clearly see the horizontal slash of the river bed, and the Tzan Juyu is at the far end of town where the lake meets the cliffs.

I’ve been told that on the good days, you can get up to 4500m ASL, and possibly cross the lake, but the past few days have allowed only local soaring. The winds here are quite predictable. The sea breeze first enters around noon from the SW, through a low gap on the west side of the Atitlán volcano. This wind, which can be turbulent when it first arrives, is called the San Lucas, after the town in that low spot. Later in the afternoon, the wind enters from a low spot between Atitlán volcano and San Pedro volcano, and is called the Santiago wind. It blows from the south and allows consistent soaring until dark. The past few days, the wind has come in like clockwork each day, allowing for lots of good soaring. You could easily rack up 20 hours or more in a week here, if you set your mind to it.

Today the fun is coming to an end, as the CIVL Bureau met at 2 pm to plan out its objectives for the meeting. The other delegates had one more day of freedom before getting down to business in the working groups tomorrow. The full Plenary starts on Saturday and finishes Sunday. After the meeting is over, there will be a spot-landing contest put on by the host Hotel del Lago where the conference is being held.