Discipline
Paragliding XC
What do we want ?
Discussion about creating weight categories, to avoid people having over-ballast. Maybe 3 is enough?
How do we achieve that ?
Creating some weight categories and pushing it as a standard for every comp, ranking, etc.. We could still have an open category, but also classification by weights.
*addition:
Maybe this is for a future, if the sport gets bigger, where Events could hold more people. f.e. 50-80 participants per weight, flying separately (different task, time, or day), maybe a side effect is that you reduce the problem of over-populated starts at times and collisions. I agree that might be not a topic for today, but something that could happen if we really grow.
*addition:
Maybe this is for a future, if the sport gets bigger, where Events could hold more people. f.e. 50-80 participants per weight, flying separately (different task, time, or day), maybe a side effect is that you reduce the problem of over-populated starts at times and collisions. I agree that might be not a topic for today, but something that could happen if we really grow.
Issue category :
Comments
I think your proposal refers to the FAI Sporting Code, Section 7A 8.5.4 - Ballast:
“Pilots must comply with the weight limitations set by the glider airworthiness standards. Weight can be measured at take-off or landing at the request of the organisers. Pilots may carry jettisonable ballast only in the form of fine sand or water. A pilot must avoid dropping ballast at any time or in a manner likely to affect other competing gliders or third parties.”
In my opinion, this rule is practically obsolete - neither enforced by organizers nor respected by pilots. In practice, it serves as a general allowance for using lead plates, weighted vests, and similar solutions.
That said, pilots shouldn’t be penalized for being small, light, or simply in good physical shape - and heavier pilots shouldn’t be penalized either. You can create as many categories as you like, but will that really encourage pilots to reduce excessive ballast, knowing it might hurt their performance and chances in the overall ranking?
I’m definitely in favor of addressing the ballast issue in some way, and I’m curious to see real-world testing of potential equalizers.
For genuinely lightweight pilots, an additional subcategory could make sense.
I’m not against creating sub-rankings, as long as there are enough competitors to make them meaningful. It doesn’t hurt anyone - but let’s be honest, if you weigh 50 kg and need 20 kg of ballast to fly an Enzo, it’s neither safe nor comfortable. Because of that, I’d rather see top-level events for pilots under 100 kg or for women, perhaps with D gliders, where they could compete under equal-ish conditions and wouldn’t feel pressured to over-ballast just to keep up with the heaviest pilots.
Most pilots don’t want to be the 70kg world champion, but want to be the world champion overall. Thus, equalizers would be a better solution than weight categories.
Every sport that I know where weight makes a diffrence have categories, and I think is fair. You can be World Champion <80, <90..or whatever... and you compete with your equals.
Equalizers might be a solution, do not have all the feedback.. but people with bigger size gliders say the get a disadvantage on turning, making then smaller sizes the ones with the advantage.
In reply to Every sport that I know… by Olmo León
From my experience, flying M Enzo for two years and then ballasting up to L for two years, it really depends on the task and weather conditions.
When you have wide and strong thermals, the L is a better glider. It is calmer and feels floatier. But when you get into not so good conditions, where thermals are narrow, the M has an advantage as the glider turns much nicer and tighter. So most of the comps I've flown in the Alps favored the M size. On L I often feel like I have to really persuade the glider into the turn, almost doing a negative turn, and the glider is still very numbly not turning. On the M it just simply goes after your hand.
In reply to From my experience, flying M… by Ondřej Pohořelský
With Size Equalizers, you would not have to fly the L with ballast anymore.
In reply to With Size Equalizers, you… by Luc Armant
I'm ballasting up, because I'm on the edge of the weight range of M, having 113kg with lightly loaded backpack. When I would carry more stuff and gain some weight through the season as I usually do, I could be over the limit by 2-3kg, so I chose to take the ballast and fly L instead, where I have more room to adjust when necessary
In reply to I'm ballasting up, because I… by Ondřej Pohořelský
Yes of course, ballasting is a good way to adjust if requires between two sizes. However also note that in a future of competition without size advantages, the equipement will be naturally much lighter, so you would not be on the edge of the L anymore. Maybe on the edge of the M to S !
The biggest drawback of this solution is to dilute the tittles. If there are too much medals, the value of medals is degraded. When we have a big sport, like Judo or Boxe, it does not matter, but when if you divide our tiny sport, there is not much left remaining !
Few years ago, I did ask to female pilots and the vast majority was against replacing female medals by weight medals.
So in effect, you'd need to have at least two medals per weight category. And that's if we don't have the Junior category.
The other thing is that if you put only 3 categories, then pilots are ballasting up to the top of each one, so you have not really solved the ballasting issue !
In reply to The biggest drawback of this… by Luc Armant
Yes, is true that current competitions don't have enough participants to apply something like this giving value to all categories.
Maybe this is for a future, if the sport gets bigger, where Events could hold more people. f.e. 50-80 participants per weight, flying separately (different task, time, or day), maybe a side effect is that you reduce the problem of over-populated starts at times and collisions. I agree that might be not a topic for today, but something that could happen if we really grow.
I think this proposal will be addressed by the equalizer vs MRT debate however related matter - how hard is it for the takeoff marshall to check your weight vs number as you enter into the takeoff gate? no extra time/delay - should be mandatory check.
Let's gather some data; does this platform support complex polls ?
Initial thoughts are we ask for; naked weight, all-up weight (pilot and equipment) and ballast ? Ballast being weight carried for the purpose of performance.
In reply to Let's gather some data; does… by Richard Meek
I think we always refer to the wing max-weight homologated.
We have debated for many months on the equalizers, we should at least tive an opportunity for real life testing, from what I heard, weather was not helping in the competitions it was supposed to be tested. Ozone did put an effort on it, testing, calculating, etc…
Real world testing could help a lot !
I think there is a lot of statements here that might not be true, and would like some statistics to back it up. I don’t think having weight categories waters down your achievements, if you watch boxing and someone wins a title, you know he is the best in the world in his weight class. Comps with 120 pilots in would easily have enough pilots to make each weight class competitive, you might have to group the weight class at either ends (XXS in to XS and XXL in to XL) for a slightly bigger pool of pilots, but I think this is a far simpler solution than equaliser. It would give the top pilots a new challenge of winning different weight classes and becoming world champion at different weights over the years.
I Agree with IvanHaas...
I had the same idea, expressed in a different way.
"Go tell Pinot that he will be the "Feather Category" champion, from now on in his life.
And, in the end of day, 'who are you' to force to other people how much ballast, risk, and challenge they are going to take in their life?
People, I think we are loosing it in here... In our attempt to go "safer", as a reaction to what has recently happened, we are messing with 'personal freedom' and this is not a good path to follow...
In reply to I Agree with IvanHaas... I… by Markos Siotos
It has been proven in the past that people are willing to do unsafe things on competitions, there must be "some" limits.
But maybe it is not needed to force a max ballast allowed, because if we had weight categories, it could come naturally that people uses their proper size (or one above), but not so crazy as it is now.
In reply to I Agree with IvanHaas... I… by Markos Siotos
If there were no ballast restrictions, you would be forcing anyone to do anything, they could fly in whatever weight category they wanted. But the people that didn’t want to fly with ballast wouldn’t have to.
Here are current most common CCC gliders ranges:
Ozone / Enzo 3
XXS 80 - 90
XS 85 - 95
S 85 - 100
MS 90 - 105
M 100 - 115
ML 110 - 125
L 120 - 135
Niviuk / Icepeak X-One
20 80 - 95
22 90 - 105
24 98 - 112
25 108 - 120
26 118 - 133
Gin Gliders / Boomerang 12
XS 85 - 95
S 95 - 105
M 105 - 115
L 115
With current situation, 4 categories suggestion:
<95 (Enzo XXS&XS, Xone 20, Boomerang XS)
<105 (Enzo S&MS, Xone 22, Boomerang S)
<115 (Enzo M, Xone 24, Boomerang M)
Nolimit (Enzo ML&L, Xone 25&26, Boomerang M&L)
In reply to Here are current most common… by Olmo León
I would add a sub 80 category as well, remember a lot of girls are 50-60kg body weight so 80kg could still be 20kg above.
In reply to I would add a sub 80… by Malin Lobb
I would too, but with current wings, it doesn't exist the option, at least with CCC.. other classes yes, agree