SLALOM FORMAT

Proposal from

Paap Kolar / Estonia

Proposal title

Slalom format 

Proposal to

FAI CIMA Section 10 Sub-committee

FAI CIMA Paramotor Committee

FAI CIMA Bureau

Existing text

Introduction and background

This proposal was submitted to the CIMA by Estonia in writing already in 2014 and verbally even earlier but was ignored by CIMA Paramotor Committee, CIMA Bureau and specifically by CIMA President Richard Meredith Hardy similarily to most of proposals from Estonia (Penary 2014 Minutes 23a).

Serious consequences of such ignorance towards the improvement attempt of FAI safety standards are already well known, not only from WPSC 2015 but also from numerous serious training accidents all over the world. 

Even after the fatal accident in WPSC 2015 finals, none of the jury’s reports did not find any shortage in safety regulations and there were no any improvement proposals included in any of jury members' reports whatsoever.

Since after 3 seasons of CIMA slalom history and despite of the decision of the 2014 Plenary (to create Separate Local Regulations and Task Catalogue for Slalom Championships to be added as a new annex to SC Sec. 10) the final version of slalom LR is still not available, this draft text is meant as an addition to the FAI 1-st category Paramotor Slalom Championships Local Regulations, starting from 2016.

Other effective means for safety improvement should be discussed and decided as well (for example smoke pylons, hologram pylons etc. to eliminate physical obstacles on the path of slalom tasks completely) but flying over the water should be the first and primary step towards safer slalom competitions and saving pilots’ lives.

New text

All FAI 1-st category Paramotor slalom (pylon) competition flights (tasks) should be carried out on the water only, effectively from the season 2016.

Organisers must provide adequate water rescue service and reliable rafts or pontoons to hold pylons securely. 

Recommended water depth for Slalom Championships is from 1 to 1.5 meters.  

Competitors must wear a personal automatic rescue floatation devices (Agama or similar) and rescue knifes during competition flights.

(wording is subject to improvement)

Reason

Low level flying is dangerous, especially in maneuvering and in high speeds. Serious danger to the life of a pilot appears not only in competitions but even more in trainings, becuse every motivated pilot is trying to practice pylon flying in similar conditions to competitions.

Instead of attracting more pilots and countries to FAI competitions, present, fundamentally disabled and life threatening regulations will disclose more and more pilots from this sport, but also put future of the slalom format in question, not to mention overall damage to FAI and CIMA image and reputation.

Results

Proposed new safety standard will create a positive incentive to follow, to carry out all pylon competitions and trainings on the water, which saves lives, prevents serious injuries, offers new perspective to the whole slalom format, contributes towards safe development of the sport and improves CIMA reputation as well. 

Alternative proposal

In case this proposal will not be noted or accepted repeatedly, altenative proposal would be to postpone or to quit completely all paramotor slalom 1-st cat. championships as failed format until the correct, comprehensive and safe regulations and technical solutions will be worked out and accepted by pilots, organisers and the whole paramotor community.