Competition News

CIVL News for 2014
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During the plenary meeting, held on Feb 2014 following changes have been defined:

CIVL Competition Class CCC:
A new Competition Class has been defined from a CIVL working group in a huge effort during the hole last year under the leadership of Jörg Ewald. This CCC has been supported by EHPU and PMA. It passed unanimously during the CIVL plenary meeting.
The requirements in short:
Use full EN certification (EN 926-1 and EN 926-2) as the basis. Additionally:
- restrict top speed at 65 km/h by limiting the maximum accelerator effect
- restrict aspect ratio to the maximum flat aspect ratio exhibited by EN certified gliders by December 31st, 2013: 7.9
- require riser sets which prevent pilots from exceeding the certified top speed
- require models to be available in multiple sizes: Smallest size < 100 kg, minimum weight range must be >25kg (from 1.1.16: < 90kg / >35kg)
- require flight tests to be conducted at the top of a wing’s weight range only, using a competition harness where relevant, flown from factory pilots if necessary
- set the waiting time until pilot input for collapse tests to 3 seconds
- add clear, precise and simple-to-follow measurements and testing procedures. The manual has to contain all relevant measurements.
Revision may be proposed in one year. At all times, if needed, CIVL Bureau has the power to adjust the requirements.

Glider controls:
During the next European championships glider controls will be carried out. Guidelines will be published on what to measure, how and with what tolerances. These will be in accordance with CCC measurements and tolerances. CIVL will send someone to do the measurement, on CIVL budget.

Different news:
- European Championships 1016 will be in Macedonia. See Swiss Glider ??
- Helmets: new standards are allowed (coming from snow sports).
- Penalties for violation of airspace rules are re-defined: “Where the pilot's track log is recorded closer than 20m from prohibited airspace, vertically or horizontally, a penalty of 2% of the pilot's task score per meter shall be deducted, resulting in a zero 30m within the restricted zone.”
- All rules for scoring Category 1 events are now included in new document called "CIVL GAP 2014".
- GPS distance and altitude measurements are redefined, altitude correction with “true altitude” implemented. This will not be used to check for airspace infringements.
- Continental WPRSs will be implemented. In European championships, the qualification criteria will refer to the top 400 of the European WPRS.

PWCA News
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There are two major new rules:

1) Disccards on all World Cups
Great News, we can fly easier and faster.

2) Conical end of speed section
It is complicated to understand it exactly, but in fact we need to know only two parameters:
a) Optimum speed (just a position on the riser which should be delivered from the manufacturer according to the polar)
b) Minimum lift to stay in the thermal
In fact, the CESS does reduce the problem of cheating with speed in final glide. For the pilot it means, that he has to fly more r less like during the hole task: Search for good lines, optimize speed according to lift and sink.

In Swiss tasks (including Swiss Open and Disentis Open), we will use CESS occasionally to learn about it.