What’s it all about? Cont..

What’s it all about? If you are an experience comp pilot look away now..

So how do gliding competition work, I mean, gliders are lovely, elegant, serene things that you see on hot sunny days float quietly and peacefully through the English countryside, what do they have to do with competition of any sort?

Well, I would say that this common perception of gliding couldn’t be further than the reality of competition flying. Competitive flight is intense, fast, furious, aggressive, stressful, dangerous, immensely satisfying and most of all – brilliant fun. I would liken it car racing without the noise and fumes.

For detailed description of how gliding competition works see here and even more details on the Lasham website.

But in short, you race around a pre-defined course and the fastest wins. Simple. Not quite though, so later on I’ll give more my own take on things like Tasks and Scoring and tactics.

A regional or national comp would normally last 9 days, this may seem like a long time but don’t forget, gliding is very much weather dependent so in a good comp you’d expect to fly on 6 out of 9 days. Some comps last year had only 2 days. International comps are 12-14 days.

Competitions are split into classes, the main classes are:

Club class: Handicapped comp for gliders with relatively low performance
Standard class: High end gliders with 15 meter wingspan and no flaps
15 Meter class: High performance gliders with 15 meters wingspan with flaps
18 Meter class: High performance gliders with 18 meters wingspan with flaps
Open class: Anything goes – no limit on wingspan or otherwise