Competitions

Bunny Hops - The secret diary of a novice paragliding competition pilot

Online International competition

British Clubs Challenge

Improve your cross-country skills and fly for the Wessex. Please contact our competitions officer if you are interested in competing.

The competition is designed to encourage paragliding and Hangliding pilots to improve their flying and cross country skills through a friendly yet competitive coaching environment, by competing in teams against other clubs.

The primary aims of the competition are flying, fun, safety and to encourage teams to visit other areas of the UK and fly new and different types of sites to help improve the scope of their flying abilities. At the same time, pilots will have the chance to learn from one another, exchanging views and ideas on the continual improvement of skills and the sport.

There are three variations of competition:-

1. Cross Country : open distance, out and return or defined goal.
2. Ridge Soaring : ridge run, out and return or touch and go.
3. Airmanship : spot landings, ground handling, or theory/quiz.

Rules:

• Up to six members (minimum two), one captain/coach, and five team members.
• The most experienced team member can fly with the team but can't score more points than their highest scoring teammate. This is to encourage the experienced captains/coaches to help the whole team fly with them, and not just for them to fly alone without coaching others.
  
• The competition is open to all pilots of sufficient experience and competence to safely attempt cross-country tasks (tasks set and consequent briefings will reflect the large variation in experience and ability of competing pilots).
  
• It is recommended that pilots have a minimum of CP plus 15 hours airtime, but the captains may use discretion.
• The team can contain only one advanced pilot.
• Pilots should be full members of the club that they compete for.
• Tandem pilots may fly in rounds, but will only score as an individual for the club.

There is no semi-final round, so the top six teams based on points scored (our top six scores count) through the year, plus one discretionary place, go through to the final.

When a club has decided that it would like to host a round, the captain's position is to invite other clubs to come along and compete. This is done by logging into the website and registering the day and place of the round. When this has been done, an email will be sent to all the other captains inviting them to compete.

A Smartgroups group has been set up for the BCC competition. It is britishclubchallenge@smartgroups.com. To subscribe please send an email to britishclubchallenge-subscribe@smartgroups.com, or request the BCC organiser to send you an invitation.

Pilot Eligibility:

Due to the success of last year and the increased requests to allow more than one advanced pilot per team, the rules have been changed to allow the teams to consist of any level of pilot above Club Pilot (+15 hrs). As before all pilots must be current BHPA members, this is actually a requirement from an insurance perspective,i.e. non members are not insured, and round organisers could be held responsible for non members if there were to be an accident.

To clarify the position on Club Pilots going cross country, the whole premise of the BCC is a coaching environment, and provided a Club Pilot is going cross country with pilots who are rated for cross country in a coaching environment this is fine.

Scoring:

In order to balance the teams now that they can be of quite varied experience, there is a handicapping system in place (see here for full details). In essence the higher your pilot rating, and the higher performance the glider you fly is, the less points you will score for your team. This should allow for Advance pilots, pilots and club pilots to compete on a reasonably level footing.

There have been a number of changes to the website, some to cope with the new scoring system, some to improve the process of round organisation and some to make it prettier.

So no matter who you are in the Club, you can volunteer your services to fly for the team.

News:

Please contact the comps officer ASAP to take part