The USA On-line Contest

GOAL. The goal of the 'US Hang Gliding and Paragliding Online Contest' (HOLC) is to encourage cross country flying by the timely scoring of cross-country flights, free from the burden of preflight declarations, to allow an easy and up-to-date comparison of cross country flights. 

1. Documentation. IGC-approved GNSS Flight Recorders or GPSes that can link to G7toWin to create IGC-formatted files. Official observers are not required. You can use Compe-GPS (www.compegps.com) or SeeYou (www.seeyou.ws) to automatically post your flight records to the HOLC web site.

2. Evaluation. Official distance after the flight start point, up to three turnpoints and the finish point are determined using the track log, so that the scored points for the flights are maximized. The entire flight from start time until finish time has to be performed in free flight without any means of propulsion. Compe-GPS or SeeYou, as well as other programs, will optimize the flight after the fact for you automatically.

3. Altitude difference, start and finish time. The minimal finish altitude is 1000 meters below the start altitude. The start altitude is the lowest altitude after the beginning of free flight and before reaching the start point. The start time is the time at which the start altitude is reached. The finish altitude is the highest altitude after reaching the finish point and before end of free flight. The finish time is the time at which the finish altitude is reached after the finish point is reached.

4. Scoring points. Your flight will be automatically optimized for the highest score when you use SeeYou or Compe-GPS to submit the flight to the HOLC.

All tasks are tracked, so that after the starting point (take-off or startgate ) up to three turnpoints and the goal (end of track) are positioned so that the score from the starting point to the goal is optimized. 

A track is valued as a triangle if the distance between starting point and landing (or ending point) is less than 20% of the total distance, defined by the turn-points. The track is scored as the distance around the three turnpoints reduced by the distance between starting-and ending.

The distance between the startgate (take-off) via up to 3 turnpoints to the end of track is scored with a minimum of 1.5 points per kilometer (km). 

Triangles, with the definition, that the shortest leg is a minimum of 28% of the total distance (FAI triangle) is scored with 2 points per km. 

All other triangles are scored with 1.75 points per km. 

The highest possible score will be used. The result is rounded to 2 decimals and is the total score for this track. Tracks with less than 15 points only are listed in the daily results, they don’t count for the total results.

5. Flight claiming. Flight claims will be only accepted at www.onlinecontest.org/holc. Claims have to be submitted by 24:00 on the Tuesday following the flight local time of the finish point. The IGC-file has to be submitted as part of the flight claim. By submitting the flight the participant certifies that the flight took place as claimed.

6. Scoring period for 2003. The scoring period starts March 1st, 2003 and ends August 31st, 2003. The new period starts September 1st, 2003 and will be in synch with the international competition.

7. The US Hang Gliding and Paragliding Online Contest Champions for 2003 will be the three participants who scores the highest number of points with three flights in paragliders (Class 3), flex wings (Class 1), and rigid wings (Class 5).

8. Publishing data. The participant agrees that his flight data and flight-routes will be published on the Internet at www.onlinecontest.org/holc.

9. Validation. Flights and scores will be accepted if no objections have been filed against them within 4 weeks after the corresponding weekly deadline (see para 5). Deadline for objections against flights made after the 15th September will be the Tuseday after the second Monday in October. October. Flight data in the form of IGC data files must be kept by the participant until one month after the end of the current competition.

10. Participation and Registration Participants are individual pilots. Participation is free of charge (sponsors finance the HOLC). Registration can only be made online via the forms provided at www.onlinecontest.org/holc and has to be made once a year. By their registration the participants agree to the competition rules.

11. All three of your flights used in the US portion of the Online contest must have started within the US.