What Tasks Earn You Points at a Classic Paramotor Competition

[@GolfFoxtrot22]

It's these details that will hopefully remove the fear about competition flying. Nice video and I bet those animations took FORGEVER!!

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Thanks Giles! I hope so too and it should give people an idea of what they can practice as well. They did! and the export took 12 hours... Worth it? I sure hope so.

[@Bexxy]

Top Notch Dan! Very well presented! I’m sure this will attract new competitors to the comps.

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Let’s hope so Andy! Will we see your name on the list?

[@Bexxy]

@@DanielJonesParamotor - let’s see mate, depends on the year ahead, I’m out of action for a few months as I have just had an operation.

[@clearprop]

Great work putting this together. 👏

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Thanks Dan, I hope it inspires some others to come and have a go

[@FatParamotorGuy]

Awesome mate - looks an exciting challenge.

[@michaelohara4216]

Nice one Dan 👍 now I know what to expect I fancy some of that. British Champs at Winglands, see ya there in July if not before...

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Glad to hear it! I really enjoyed last years and given 2021 is on home turf, it should be a good one as well 👍 hope to catch up soon mate

[@turkeyphant]

Are you allowed to change wing during a comp? As obviously some wings will be better for speed and some for efficiency.

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Hi Jon, Unfortunately not as it would unbalance the competition in favour of people having a lot of money and doesn't test your competition setup choice. The UK nationals are quite well aimed at having a good all rounder glider rather than having a top end glider

[@turkeyphant]

@@DanielJonesParamotor good point and I think that's fairest

[@turkeyphant]

@@DanielJonesParamotor ps congrats for your performance in Brazil, when will we be seeing some videos?

[@ooglek]

This is awesome!!! I'd love to learn how to run competitions like this with my flying buddies. Are things scored manually or is there software to accept a flight log and score against the pre-determined route? How do I do this as an amateur? And where can I get awesome maps printed?

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

I love the enthusiasm! These tasks can definitely be scored manually but I believe they’ve had a piece of software specifically written for these tasks. I don’t think it’s publicly available though. I’m aiming to put together a ‘how to’ series on planning and executing each task. Sounds like I need to put together a bit more info on the basics before that. For maps I use OS maps printed at a 1:66.6k scale which makes each kilometre 1.5cm long. That’s simply to get more on the map as we’ve not got a large cockpit to work with. Once that’s printed for your area, mark on the no fly zones and airspace. Then you can mark on some routes. An easy one to start with is the snake task. Just draw a wiggly line and follow it as precisely as you can. Log your flight with a logger or an app then check your track against your drawn task and see how accurate you were. The other tasks are a bit more involved so I definitely think a video to explain would be best. Happy to answer any questions on messenger, just drop me a line on Facebook 👍

[@ooglek]

@@DanielJonesParamotor Wicked. Your video on the different task types was thoroughly helpful in getting some of my fellow pilots interested in precision visual navigation. I dug into some maps on USGS.gov and I think they will work well. OpenStreetMaps was OK, Google Maps didn't show vegetation well enough to use it for navigation. I'll probably need a better printer though! Do you print at home or go to a store with a nice color printer? The board design video was really helpful. It'd be great to have a video on finding good base maps, how to get great quality prints, either at home or at a shop, etc. Digging into map resolution and printer resolution would be useful, though if you find another video on image and printing resolution, maybe just point to that instead! The other "unknowns" for me is how to choose the points, routes, and/or turning areas. From the 2020 Rules, it seems that turn areas are 200m in diameter, the corridors are 250m wide (125m on either side), and that some tasks are timed and others are just if you stay within the boundaries. I'd love to see some software or even a website that allows you to define a path, then upload your flight track and tell you if you did a good job! Allow people to build their own tasks and make them public, just for fun, and track their performances -- maybe pull data from SkyLines.aero or LiveTrack24. Are there any websites that publish tasks like that?

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Nice! I’m glad the task video helped out recruit some fellow pilots! For maps the comps use ordnance survey maps at a 1:66.6k scale. The reason for the 1:66.6k scale is so that 1.5cm on the printed map = 1km distance And you’ve still got enough visible detail to nav. It allows for more visible map area when mounted onto your map board. I used memory-map.com/maps/ and it looks like they cover the US too! I’ve just printed them at home on a bog standard A4 printer and stuck the individual sheets together although, if you can find a printing place that will do a large print that would save you having to stick it all together. The comp area normally covers 6 A3 sheets. You can make the area larger or smaller to whatever you want to cover. Make sure you mark on any local airspace to avoid. For marking routes and turnpoints: routes are normally 40km long and you can either mark these on in a couple of ways. The easiest is to print you map, laminate it with fablon and then use a thin marker pen to draw the route. You can measure a piece of string if you want to get close to the 40km length. I.e a 60cm piece of string will = 40km. The other way is to load your map into photoshop or similar before printing and mark your routes on from there. This way is much more consistent if you’re running a competition or friendly with the other local pilots. Turnspoints are usually around 4-6km apart, increase in point value the further away they are from the airfield and are placed on a point that visually recognisable e.g a crossroad, bridge, church tower etc. Turnpoints are 200m in diameter, cylindrical and go from surface to infinity. Every task route is 250m wide but for example the snake task isn’t timed as it requires you to fly accurate along the drawn task line. The declared time task requires you to arrive at the turnpoints on that task route at the time you’ve defined by doing the calculations beforehand. I’ve not made any videos of each task planning yet as I’m trying to find the time to get over to one of the championship pilots to do some videos together. These will be coming! As an interim guide, Mike Page put together this quite in depth nav video kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIGqlmCrmdOriLc If you want to start simply print out your map, draw a wiggly line, go fly it as accurately as possible with a track logger like flyskyhy or similar, when you land mark some hidden gates anywhere on the map route, look at your track and see if you hit those gates. That’s essentially the snake task. That’ll get you up and using your maps to get an idea of how they work. Like I said, hopefully I’ll have those guides on the way soon. As far as I’m aware there isn’t a website dedicated to these types of tasks as it’s so niche, It’s a good idea though. I definitely couldn’t engineer anything like that as I’m nowhere near developer savvy enough 😂

[@ooglek]

@@DanielJonesParamotor Amazing detail mate, thank you!!! I've got some work to do to plan out some tasks during our upcoming Cross Country trip. Currently I'm ranked 96th on XContest.org! paramotors.xcontest.org/world/en/pilots/detail:ooglek My last flight was my longest, though I wasn't really navigating visually as much as I probably should have -- it was a bit cold so I was down lower! I'm very much looking forward to any videos you do on the topic. I'm not going to be doing pylon races anytime soon, this seems like a fun challenge and a new skill. Super stoked -- thanks Daniel!!

[@shadokitteh8523]

Wasn't it a rule somewhere that you had to have some fuel left when landing? If so, how do they do that during the Pure Economy challenge?

[@DanielJonesParamotor]

Good question! I’ll have to look into that for you