Competitions and Racing

Most glider pilots will train to be come competent cross-country pilots. Once they have experienced a couple of flights the desire to go further, faster and higher usually kicks in.

Badge Flights, BGA Ladder, Regional Competitions, Grand Prix. Booker has the instructing skills and equipment to take you to the next level.

Competitions at Booker use the easy-to-fly Distance Handicap Tasks, a format developed by two of our members, Tim Scott and Jim White. It is a fair competition format that gives pilots of lower performance gliders an equal chance of getting round.

The way it works is that once the task turnpoints are set, circles of different radius round each turnpoint are defined, so that gliders with a lower handicap can turn earlier. All the gliders share the same task route but are more likely to be in touch throughout the task. The winner is simply the pilot who takes the least time to complete the task, no matter what distance they flew.

The advantages are:

• pilots in lower performance gliders can directly compare their performance with those in the latest hot ships
• the task can be set up simply with a GPS device
• the format is simpler to fly than an ‘assigned area task’
• flights can be submitted to the BGA National Ladder
• 1000 point day scoring
• and…….pilots in lower performance gliders get back for the beers rather than landing out all the time