To make our NZ XC league more interesting, we have been talking to Manolis who runs the Leonardo online XC web site and can now announce:

NZ online XC League is up and running!

The idea is to give everybody, especially the less experienced pilots a chance to learn from other pilots' long flights, to create more interest in XC flying, to inspire pilots to try a flight or a site someone else has flown from, (to show off mercilessly should you be proud of a great flight) and to keep everyone posted on how the competition is going.

2D track of Jeff's flight - 3D is even much better!: click on the picture to go to Leonardo to see more details of the flight

On Leonardo, every pilot can up-load the 3D log of his XC flight as soon as he gets home from flying. The web site works out a score for each flight, sorts them for instance by pilot, site, country, glider, date and ultimately works out a ranking within this league.

The great and educational part is, that you can view the 3D tracklog against a 2D map or even 3D on Google Earth, or analyse the statistics of the flights.

some statistics of Jeff's ast flight

We are aware that not everybody wants to share their flight like this, but many good pilots are happy to let everyone learn from their experience. Jeff Ripley - current NZ champ and best North Island pilot in the last NZ XC table - and Reuben Muir - last years / 2 times NZ Champ - are making a start along with many others. (I would, too, but I doubt I get much time off to go XC flying this year... Eva)

Hopefully, this will make the job a lot easier for Tim Percival who has so far run the XC competition "manually". That seems quite a bit of work and we thank Tim for doing this job!!

Flights now entered on the web will automatically enter into the established NZ XC competition. The NZ XC competition will continue to be run as per usual (with some new rule changes this year). This online scoring system is an opportunity to make life easier for those who administer the comp and an even greater opportunity for pilots to learn from each others' flights.

Please join in! Especially if you are one of the experienced pilots, but also if you are doing your first XCs and would like some pointers for others.

You can find this competition if you click on the Leonardo Logo, or if you visit www.pgforum.com > LEONARDO > XC Leagues (top left) > NZ online XC.

Rules are simple and few and much the same as the NZHGPA XC rules have always been:

• NZHGPA member
• flight launched in NZ
• fly within 1 April 2008 to 30 March 2009

Get in touch with me (Eva) or Jeff Ripley or John Walton for any further information on how it all works!

We need a PRIZE: The pilot with the best score out of 3 flights this year get a sponsored GIN or SWING glider with at least $1,000 off or a piece of GIN or Swing clothing of their choice and a special prize for the best Auckland pilot and rookie.