Paragliding Accuracy

Since the first FAI World Paragliding Accuracy Championships held in the UK in 2000, this comparatively new CIVL discipline has been increasing steadily in popularity. Today more than 400 pilots from 20 countries are logged on the CIVL Paragliding Accuracy database and WPRS.

(photo : Juozas Kaunas)

The CIVL online database of pilots, competitions and results which includes pilots and nations ranking system has just been enhanced with the option of including photographs of pilots. Check out the Womens' Paragliding ranking

http://civlrankings.fai.org/?a=329&ladder_id=3&ranking_date=2007-08-01&
or Paragliding Nations ranking
http://civlrankings.fai.org/?a=328&ladder_id=3&ranking_date=2007-08-01&
to give you an idea of how it will look.

For the next edition of the World Air Games the FAI has decided to go for a new and more media concentrated and media friendly set up of the event.
The event for approximately 20 different air sport disciplines should be:
· organised at (or close to) one location
· one week duration
· focused on media and public friendly air sport disciplines
· attended by the top pilots of the air sports

The new, improved World Pilot Ranking System (WPRS) is up and running!
A new formula for calculating the World Pilot Ranking System (WPRS), proposed by the CIVL Scoring & Ranking Systems and Software Working Group, was discussed and agreed at the Plenary meeting in Talloires, France, in February 2007. The agreed implementation date was 1st March, 2007.

The new formula marks a significant improvement on the old versions, and importantly, the same formula can now be used for all disciplines. The disciplines covered by the WPRS include: Paragliding XC, Paragliding Accuracy, Paragliding Aerobatics (Syncro and Solo), Hang Gliding XC Class1, Hang Gliding XC Class 2, Hang Gliding Class 5 and Hang Gliding Aerobatics. Within each discipline, the rankings for Nations and Women are also listed.

Because I think that there should be better and more frequent communication between the CIVL bureau and the pilots and because I wanted to get acquainted with one of the CIVL’s smaller, but fast growing disciplines, I travelled to Trakai in Lithuania in February, where the 4th FAI World Paragliding Accuracy Championship was held.

Overall organiser and meet director of this competition was Violeta Grigoraitiene. Violeta told me that organising a World Championship in Lithuania was one of her dreams. After she had convinced the Lithuanian aero club, she started on the long road towards organising the competition. Violeta organised a very successful test competition and she and her organisation staff were ready for the real comp. What has contributed to the success of this championship, and what is a problem in many of the major competitions, is the large group of volunteers that were involved in the organisation. The group of volunteers was almost as big as the number of competitors.