Organiser	Drachenfliegerclub Innsbruck
Chief organisers	Herbert & Sabine Siess
Deputy organiser	Manfred Nössing
Meet director	Roland Vuketich
Deputy director	Herbert Brunner

CIVL officials:

Steward	Heather Mull		Australia
Jury	Riikka Vilkuna John Aldridge Vasco Duarte Raposo	president member member	Finland Great Britain Portugal

The European Hang Gliding Championships 2000 was organised in Gnadenwald - Innsbruck - Hall in Tirol, Austria July 9th-23rd.

The staffing levels in the competition organisation were more than adequate, staff were generally helpful and efficient and knew well the local conditions. The meteorologist was particularly good, he was a local pilot, had trained in the area and gave clear and comprehensive briefs to the team leaders. Communication between the organisers, the steward and the jury was extremely good.

During the championships 6 competition tasks were flown. There was no training task due to bad weather conditions. Six competition days were validated.

The weather was disappointing for most of the first week, cloudbase was low and rain was a regular feature. It was only possible to set one task in that first week of competition and some of the early tasks were necessarily shorter than one would expect in a prestigious championship.

There were 99 competitors of which 86 were in class 1 and 13 in class 2. There were 6 female pilots representing 5 countries, all of them in class 1. 21 nations participated in the championships; there were pilots from 21 countries in class 1 and from 6 countries in class 2. This relatively small number of competitors was due an assumption that there would be more European competitors; this was possibly due to the recently introduced rules on pilot eligibility (pilot qualification criteria to category 1 events). This led to a decision at the CIVL Plenary meeting in 2000 not to accept guest pilots to this Championships from other FAI Regions. The main launch at Seegrube is capable of taking 150 competitors, however a larger number of pilots would have exacerbated the problems which sometimes arose with the launch queues.

Results

Class 1 individuals 1. Manfred Ruhmer Austria 2. Robert Reisinger Austria 3. Oleg Bonderchuk Ukraine

Class 2 individuals 1. Matrella Gaetano Italy 2. Marcus Hoffman-Guben Germany 3. Diego Bussinger Switzerland

Class 1 teams 1. Austria 2. France 3. Italy

Class 2 teams 1. Germany 2. Switzerland 3. Austria

The best female pilot in the competition (class 1) was Kathleen Rigg (UK).

Accidents

There were two failed launches on the first day without injuries. On the 16th of July some pilots and team assistants took part in a spot landing competition from Hinterhornalm outside the championship. A Hungarian pilot who was participating in the EC failed to launch and suffered a broken arm and severe concussion. On the second competition day on the 17th of July a Portuguese class 2 pilot crashed on launch from Seegrube upper launch and suffered a broken a leg.

On both occasions the rescue helicopter was summoned by the organisers without delay and arrived in a very short time (less than 10 minutes) from it's base at Innsbruck Airport. Conditions at launch were not always ideal and required good pilot judgement.

There were several special events which enhanced the championship, the opening ceremony at the centre of Innsbruck on the 9th of July was excellent and followed by a buffet dinner. There was a Pilots' night on Friday the 14th in Hall with live music. A tent at the landing field had been arranged to accomodate for parties and to supply food and refreshment to the pilots. Unfortunately this was not used as much as the organisers hoped because of the spread out of team accommodation and the poor weather in the first week. The spot landing contest on the 16th of July had generous prizes. A go-kart competion was also arranged. In addition the organisers provided information on skiing, horse riding and other activities in the area which many teams took advantage of.

Things to learn and improve

In competitions where GPS verification is used as the primary flight verification method (as it was in this case, decided at the first briefing) with another method as back-up (e.g. photographic) it may cause problems - and did so in this championship. In locations where CTR or other restricted airspace violations are possible allowing two systems of flight verification is not desireable. It may result in bad feeling and allegations of dishonesty if pilots claim GPS failure and hand in their film. They should not have this alternative option in future competitions where restricted airspace can present a problem for the pilots.

Where airspace restrictions are likely to be a problem for pilots it is essential that they are issued with maps which clearly show the ground feature relating to the airspace boundaries. They should also be provided with with exact co-ordinates of restricted airspace boundaries.

It is also essential that turnpoint coordinates are accurate when GPS verification is used; the digital mapping system (Austrian map) available in the scoring room demonstrated that this was so in this competition.

The above points should be addressed by CIVL before the next competition season and a thorough review of Annex 15 to Section 7 (GPS Flight Verification) should be conducted in light of this season's experience.

The local problems associated with Innsbruck CTR violations led the organisers to put an automatic DSQ into the local regulations for such violations without considering the full implications of such a penalty. With ten pilots disqualified in one task a strict interpretation of this rule would have resulted in these pilots having their FAI Sporting licences withdrawn. This would mean missing other FAI sanctioned competitions this season, in some cases this includes their own national championships. There were no formal complaints or protests but it led to much discussion, some of it heated, and the Meet Director decided to modify the penalty to a zero score on that task day and all subsequent days. Those pilots were subsequently allowed to fly at the end of the task window.

Competitors FAI-licences should be checked, preferably by a named CIVL official, as well as their eligibility (pilot qualification for a category 1 competition). In this championship a pilot flying for a European team (Israel) claimed to hold a Columbian FAI licence. There were also many misunderstandings among teams about their pilots' qualifications to enter this competition.

Problems also arose with launch window open times in the case of failed launches at one of the multiple launch lanes which were a considerable distance apart. Many pilots were held up and some did not get off the hill within the remaining window. There is nothing specific about this in Section 7 and a protest was submitted. Consideration should be given to including guidance on this in future editions of Section 7. Where launch window opening times are extended this can cause problems with start tarp times which are not similarly extended.

A list system was instituted for better take-off organisation but the list's operation was not always clear to the pilots and the marshals compiling the launch lists did not appear to be impartial. This procedure is not covered in 5.28 of Section 7 but variations of it have been used in both the Pre-Worlds and this competition this season. Consideration should be given to providing guidelines in the next edition of Section 7.

Better training of launch marshals in "pushing" procedures would have helped in this championship, throughout the marshals failed to ensure that timings were strictly adhered to.

There have been two overt Jury actions in this championship:

The first was considering a protest from the German team leader who wished to have the first task ruled invalid. The protest was not accepted and both the protest and the jury ruling are attached.

The second took place a team leaders' meeting to discuss the disqualification of ten pilots from the Championship for an airspace violation. It was generally agreed that the penalty laid down for the infringement was draconian and several team leaders wanted to have the competition rules changed after the championship had started. The discussion continued and a vote of team leaders was proposed. It was necessary for both the Steward and Jury Members to intervene to point out that the General Section of the Sporting Code did not permit such changes and that the Event Director did not have discretion make any without risking invalidating the championship. This was also expressed by the Event Director. The Steward and the Jury Members also pointed out that the nations which the competitors were representing had agreed to the rules concerned. However the jury recommends that the implications of penalties in local regulation should be examined more before being agreed.

The Euroepan Championship was conducted successfully and in accordance with the FAI rules (Sporting Code General Section, Section 7 and Local Regulations).

23rd of July, 2000 Gnadenwald

Riikka Vilkuna
jury president

Vasco Raposo
member

John Aldridge
member