Minutes from NHPC meeting 26/11/2011, Copenhagen – Denmark.
Attending;
Ágúst Gudmundson (AG) -Iceland, Jeppe Krogh (JK) + Niels Jørgen Askirk (NJA) + Scott Torkelsen (ST) + Rasmus Rohlff (RR) + Birger Strandqvist (BS) – Denmark, Wania & HP Fallesen (HP) + Marko Wramén (MW) – Sweden, Robert Arts (RA) – Finland, Knut Nygard (KN) + Øyvind Ellefsen (OE) – Norway.
SE = Sweden, DK = Denmark, FI = Finland, NO = Norway, IS = Iceland
1. Opening of the meeting/right to make decisions
Meeting was opened by Rasmus Rohlff at 09:00, with some information about the day, and a short introduction of each participant at the meeting.
2. Approval of the agenda
The agenda was approved.
3. Approval of the minutes of the last meeting
Last year’s minutes (Oslo 2010) was approved after a little discussion around point 5.
4. No one declared any conflict of interest
5. Exchange of general information regarding safety and training matters
Incidents and accidents
DK: The Danish accident report was presented and RR was making some minor translation of the Danish terms. The reported number of accidents in 2011 was falling, compared to 2010. But the statistic materiel is small.
HP: Ask for good ideas to ensure accident reports are made. In Sweden is it mandatory to report, but not everyone does it.
RA: Finland has a competition among the pilots there have made reports.
AG: Iceland do have a yearly meeting were everybody tell about their experience and other pilots can make amendments, CIVL have a incident/accident report web database there can be used by everybody who have a pilot profile.
OE: Norway is selecting some accident and there is brought in their flight magazine, so other pilots can learn from others accidents and thus avoid repetition.
RA: They have had a lawsuit about a student who had suffered a fatal accident. The instructor had the court ruling did not stick completely to the rules.
Finland has a stable accident numbers.
SE: HP highlighted an incident which was flown by a commercial tandem towing, where the passenger broke his back because the pilot hit the passenger during a start attempt. After the accident it was discussed if the passenger’s harness should have better protection
There were 8 serious accidents in SE.
Action/Decisions:
- It was agreed to inform each other if we become aware of any of our pilots have had an accident in one of the other Nordic countries.
We will not in future use the time to show our accident statistics at our Nordic meetings, as our material is not large enough to draw conclusions.
We shall in future send 1-2 items translated into English within 3 weeks before the meeting and they will be items on the agenda for safety matters. It can be serious accidents, interesting developments, or problem positions regarding security and training, the point is that we can bring back something of value for the respective nations safety work.
- Denmark is asking for rules for water towing, Knut from Norway promised to send the Norwegian rules.
6. Exchange of general information regarding next year events
No discussion points were raised.
7. Nordic competitions
RA: FI had a big successful event “Frozen Lake Motor paragliding”, with approx. 100 pilots.
Nordic championships (review of last year’s championship, decision on future championships)
RA: Nordic Open PG 2011 was not pilot friendly for pilots with less experience, it was held in a narrow valley and the tasks were reportedly not set with safety as top priority. There were several accidents. On the positive side the organization was reported to be really good.
Action/Decisions:
- Marko will work with some more detailed guidelines to the organisers for task settings and other issues, Robert will help him and send the draft to the Nordic mail list. The next 5 bullets should be included.
- The Nordic Open PG should be a ”Fun and friendly competition” as already described in the bid template. It needs to be made clearer that the tasks in the Nordic Open PG must be adapted to the many pilots who fly competition for the first time abroad, and not be a competition for only top pilots with difficult tasks from day 1.
- Historically the Nordic Open PG has been just before a Cat 1, but bids that specify other periods are welcome.
- When it´s possible, there must be more than one class with minimum 5 pilots by deadline of registration for Nordic comps. For the Nordic Open PG XC comps there will be an AB wing class, C wing class, D wing class. Marko will send the rules and include them in the updated template draft.
- Bids should be received before 1. November so there is time to clarify and think about the bids before the meeting
- The meeting re-stated that the Nordic comp must have minimum two Nordic nations participating and follow the FAI CAT 2 rules, also with regards to validity for a Nordic Champion.
http://www.fai.org/civl-events/organising-events
The participating countries may have their own rules about validity for their national championships, but this does not affect the Nordics. We are aware of the “problem” of low scoring comps, but that is not important for Nordics.
Nordic trophy
There was discussion about making the Nordic Trophy a permanent list of names and flights on a takeoff somewhere in the Nordics, possibly in Vågå. OE will look into this and come up with a proposal.
Terrible weather this season did not produce many Trophy flights. There was one 200km out&return HG flight in Norway, but it was not logged properly so it could not count.
The meeting awarded the Nordic Trophy to these flights;
Nordic Trophy PG 2011
Tom Salamonsen with a FAI Triangle flight over 64km
(http://no.flightlog.org/fl.html?l=1&a=34&gdf=1&trip_id=272212)
Nordic Trophy HG 2011
Kristoffer Nielsen (DK) with a FAI Triangle flight over 106km
(http://www.dhpu.dk/liga/ligalister/visopgaven.asp?id=466)
8. Review of Nordic records
Nordic records list have been based on automatic extract from loggboka, this does not work as well as hoped, so the list needs to be done manually and put online.
It looks like there was one new this year, Kristoffer Nielsen DK Ridgid HG, 100km triangle speed and 106 Km triangle.
NHPC will make the Nordic records more public on the new website, and hope the different countries can promote record flying in their respective organizations.
Action/Decisions:
- AG and OE will find the latest updated list of Nordic records and publish it on the website.
9. Bids for Nordic competitions 2012.
PG XC comps
Two bids for the Nordic PG Open (XC), promoted by Denmark (Spain and Italy)
One bid for the Nordic PG Open (XC), promoted by Sweden.
One bid for the Nordic PG Acro, promoted by Sweden.
ST presented the Danish bids from Mads Syndergaard, which contained two alternatives for sites (Subasio – Italy and Ager – Spain).
The bid for Subasio was not accepted.
Ager: The site will help to have a social comp and the weather is normally stable, but maybe to warm for some participants.
Marko presented the Swedish bid from Joakim Johansson in Werfenweng – Austria. It has a very good infrastructure where pilots do not have to drive to the takeoff, a cooler climate, but the risk of problems with the weather was seen as high.
Both bids offer all the things needed to run a good competition, and it was down to voting from the Nordic countries on what site and competition they wanted.
It was very nice to have more than one organizer bidding this year, the meeting participants are very thankful that we got such well prepared bids.
Action/Decisions:
- After a voting the Ager – Spain bid was accepted. Scott will communicate to Mads Syndergaard that we have accepted his bid.
- Marko will thank Joakim Johansson for his bid.
- HG XC in Vågå by default since no other bid was received.
Acro PG
Marko presented the Swedish bid for Acro in Åre. The organizer has not used the template, so some information was not included in the bid.
Action/Decisions:
- The bid was accepted, if the name of the comp is chanced to “Nordic Paragliding Open Acro Championship 2012 – Downteam Challenge”. As described in the bid it must be held as FAI CAT 2 comp. Sweden (Marko) will communicate the decision to the organizer.
Future Nordic bids, rules, validation, etc.
Other discussions about competitions
Action/Decisions:
- As long CIVL do not allow PG Open class in Category 1 competitions, they are not allowed in the Nordic Open PG XC.
- We will accept bids for: PG and HG XC, PG Acro, PG accuracy.
- In the future with more developed competitions scene there could also PG Speed flying/riding and Paramotor be accepted if we have any bids
11. Review of CIVL and EHPU matters
EHPU
There were no issues discussed at the meeting, it was noted that not all Nordic nations are part of EHPU.
CIVL – Crisis in CIVL.
ST began by highlighting the lack of candidates for President and the S-Secretary position. Being President requires almost full-time commitment.
One option is to pay more to get the job done.
AG are together with Louise, doing the Presidents work. The next Plenary meeting in Taiwan will most likely be without some of the specialist that have attended the Plenary in recent years, and this might affect in making the right decisions. It is a trip funding issue
RR brought the discussion out to one on general management principles, but without any conclusive actions.
AG: Back to CIVL’s immediate problems, there will be send out a nomination list for presidents to the CIVL delegates soon, so perhaps it is possible to find some good candidates and get them to accept the nomination. It is up to member country’s to ensure they can be selected.
CIVL – PG Open class task force.
AG There were only few members of the group active in the beginning. But when Greg withdrew as a chairman and from the group, due to him not receiving response from most, group members acknowledged that they had not actively participated. The result was that when Greg stopped, the task force group really started and has been working actively now, with Louise driving the work forward (among a lot of other task she has been driving).
There will be a report from the group within soon, so everyone can read their proposals and suggestions.
CIVL – PWC
There are some talk of closer cooperation of CIVL and PWC in Paragliding XC competitions. We expect to see announcement soon.
CIVL – HG Helmets.
There are some discussions within HG community on who is to police how much a helmet must be changed before it is not certified anymore. OE was asked to lead some sensible discussion on the HG SSC.
Action/Decisions:
- Robert Arts makes a proposal for making the CIVL secretary a paying job, Knut Nygard has the responsibility to send it to CIVL before the deadline on approx. 15th December.
12. Other matters
PG Motor.
RA Want to know how the PG motor are organized in other Nordic countries.
FI Same as PG
IS Same as PG
SE 2 organizations are issuing licenses.
NO Same as PG
DK Foot start have the same organization today, but soon PG Ultra Light paratrikes join.
Robert told that there is a growing tendency to new members comes from pilots who just want to fly with the motor.
XC liga
AG Invited all Nordic countries use or connect their XC Leagues to FAI WXC League. This is a task for Stein-Tore to connect the Flightlog to the WXC. No pilots from Norway, Iceland or Sweden are in WXC because of this lack of interface. Finland was also reminded to connect.
13. Closing of the meeting
Next year’s meeting.
Will be held in Stockholm – Sweden, 24/11/2011. Sweden takes over the running of the NHPC when these minutes are done, until next year’s minutes are done.
Sweden is welcome to make a new “Priority ordered agenda” for the next meeting.
Meeting was closed at 17:02
Signed
Niels Jørgen Askirk
