Introduction

The competition is based around Dunstable Downs. Scattered around them we've placed 15 waypoints; some easy to reach, some much harder. The take offs are marked with a red circle and labelled with "TOA" and a number. Each waypoint is marked with a blue circle and labelled “WPT01” to “WPT15”. View the sites and waypoints here.

Prizes

There will be prizes at the AGM for:

What do I have to do?

Take off from a designated take-off area at a Dunstable HGPG Club site, start by flying inside the site circle (red circle), fly into one or more waypoints (blue circle) and finish by flying inside a site circle (red circle). See examples. It’s up to you to decide when conditions are suitable to fly and which waypoints are safely reachable. That’s all there is to it!

Sounds fun! What’s next?

Examples

These flights are fine:

Take off and start inside a site circle, fly to a waypoint and back, finish and land inside site circle.

Take off just outside a site circle (but within the designated site take-off area), fly into the site circle, fly to a waypoint, fly to a second waypoint and finish at a second site circle, landing at a suitable place.

…but these are not allowed:

Not finishing by flying into a site circle before landing

Taking off from a non-Dunstable HGPG Club site

Rules

Eligibility

  1. In order to take part in this competition you must be a paid-up member of Dunstable HGPG Club
  2. If a CP-rated pilot plans a route that goes from one site to another and would therefore count as a "proper xc", a briefing from a club coach or P/AP-rated pilot is required before take-off and a CAA chart should be carried.
  3. Pilots must be qualified to fly a site in order to score waypoints by taking off from that site according to the site rules

Scoring

  1. All waypoint and site circles have a radius of 100 metres.
  2. Each waypoint can only be bagged once per pilot for the "most waypoints over the season" prizes.
  3. Each waypoint can also be bagged once per flight for the "most waypoints in one flight" prizes.
  4. 1 point will be scored for every waypoint bagged (therefore maximum score possible for each prize category = 15).
  5. Site circles do not count as waypoints in this scoring system.
  6. In order to score, a flight:
    1. must take off from a designated Dunstable HGPG Club take-off site
    2. must have a GPS track point inside a site circle at the start *
    3. must have a GPS track point inside each waypoint circle claimed *
    4. must have a GPS track point inside a site circle at the finish *
  7. In the event of a tie for a first place, the winner will be the pilot who achieves their total in the shortest time
  8. All igc files are accepted (no security signature or G record required)

Safety

* Pearl of Wisdom from XAlps competitor Richard Bungay: the most common error in competitions is pilots thinking they have left a track point inside a waypoint circle when they haven’t been inside it long enough for their GPS to record one. Set your GPS track point recording interval to 5 seconds maximum to avoid this (less if your GPS has enough memory) and lurk inside the waypoint circle long enough to score.