After a joint meeting of the PG & HG sub committees to thrash out some general policy on penalties, task setting and such stuff we headed for what was the 'big event' here - the PG subcommittee where the future of competition paragliding as we know it is under review.
I should make it clear here that most of what I mention below is with reference to Cat.1 events..so far, Cat.2's seem to be unaffected aside from the fact that they have not to conflict in principle with Cat.1 events. As well as that all the motions / recommendations etc from these 2 days of meetings must be ratified by the Plenary vote at the weekend to become 'the law'.
I have heard so much today of 'motions', 'proposals' 'actions' and 'reviews' that i'm a bit overwhelmed by the committee 'geek-speak' but more or less the following is the outcome of todays meetings:
Helmets: after a long discussion regarding the merits or not of various standards including EN966, EN1077 and various motorcycling, inline skating and other certification methods, the subcommittee have accepted the Bureau proposal of last November to require all pilots in Cat1 events to wear EN966 helmets with immediate effect. Since other standards under discussion were not found to directly meet the Airbourne sports standard it was felt that as a group, the subcommittee could not presume to understand more than the test authorities. Hence EN966 it is....for now.
Harnesses: another long debate about proto, home made and 'interfered with' harnesses ended up with the proposal that from 1st May 2011 all harnesses in Cat.1 events must be certified to EN1651 (strength) and LTF09 (protection) standard or equivalent. When we looked into this it seems that the competition harnesses of Advance, Ava, Gin, Kortel and Woody Valley are already in compliance with these standards, although some may require the use of a non-standard LTF approved backprotector. So, its not as restrictive as it appears at first.
Obviously new rules on equipment require 'policing' at the actual events - the ways and means of actually doing this resulted in a pretty lively debate!
Many other points requiring the rewording of Section 7 were discussed and put forward for the Sporting Code subcommittee to discuss on day2.
Number of pilots in Cat.1 events: Another controversial debate hinging around whether the FAI is wanting to include all eligible nations in Cat.1 events or whether following on from a decision by the Olympic committee that only satisfactorily qualified competitors should be allowed to compete. I'm not sure of the details of the Olympic committee discussions but seemingly the Olympics are no longer open to ALL nations if a minimum standard is not reached. Anyway an analysis of the recent Serbian Europeans and Mejico Worlds showed no correlation between accidents and low ranked pilots and following from discussion around that, wprs ranking seemed not to be a good way of restricting entry. The local organisers will continue to define the maximum numbers -up to 150- and minimum standards to enter an event in the Local regulations which must be approved by the Plenary. However a motion was made for an amendment to section 7 as follows:
Pilots must have flown 'x' number of flights over 'y' kilometers in an FAI sanctioned paragliding competition with a minimum of 'z' competitors.
The aim is to ensure that 'reasonable quality' events are used in the selection procedure of pilots who don't automatically qualify on the basis of ranking, since pilot numbers are perceived to determine that a pilot has the ability to fly in gaggles.
...and thats all folks, for Day1.
It may seem that not much was dealt with in terms of what we are really interested in but to put it in context, I was in meetings from 9am until 8:30pm.
Anyone who knows me will know that sitting still isn't one of my strong points - the day had its trials ;-)! Day2 has the potential to be an even longer day!
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