Paragliding World Cup Announces 2017 Competition Circuit

STORY BY Patrick 25th February 2017

The Paragliding World Cup has announced it’s 2017 schedule with five competitions to be staged from May to October with competitors taking off from mountains locations in Europe and South America, each chosen for their challenge and opportunities for the world’s best paragliders.

There are several forms of paragliding competition including racing, acrobatic flying, accuracy of landing and open distance but the latter three are outside the scope of the Paragliding World Cup.

The most similar sport to paraglider racing is yacht racing where boats race around a course marked by a number of floating bouys in the sea.

Of course it’s not possible to put bouys in the air so the racing is done around a number of ‘turnpoints’.  These were originally fixed points on the ground which were identifiable from the air (a church tower, a distinctive hill, a brightly coloured roof etc).  Today these points are still in use but modern paraglider racing now uses special GPS enabled flight instruments and the turnpoints are programmed into these so that the pilot flies a ‘virtual’ course around the sky.

“The use of these instruments means we can now define a turnpoint absolutely anywhere without the need for it to be identifiable by sight,” said a World Cup spokesperson.

The World Cup kicks off in France with the Coeur de Savoie competition staged during a weather window from 20th to 27th May at a location in the heart of the Alps.

The competition moves to Serbia from 17 to 24 June and then Switzerland from 5th to 12th August.

In the Autumn the contest crosses the Atlantic for the two final stages from 2nd to 9th September then winds up in Ecuador from 28th October to 4th November.

For each stage of the World Cup the course can be, and usually is, different every day and is decided by a specially formed committee just before the start of each race – this allows the committee to assess the weather and wind conditions on the day in question and pick the best course to give a sporting and challenging, but hopefully not impossible to complete, race.

The course decided upon is referred to as the ‘task’ and the task is to fly around the entire course and arrive at the end (the goal) in the fastest time. The turnpoints take the form of a vertical (normally) cylinder stretching from the ground up into the sky for an unlimited distance and the pilot has to enter each of these cylinders, normally in a specified order, before continuing on to the next turnpoint.

Failing to enter a cylinder will mean that the pilot is not scored past that point and will, effectively, end his/her race there – the flight instruments carried by the pilots detect when they have entered a given cylinder and inform the pilot that he/she may now proceed to the next.

 

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