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Rally and Precision Flying The sport of Rally and Precision flying originated in Scandanavia, but it's popularity quickly spread throughout Europe and beyond. At the highest level, European and World Championships are competed on an alternating annual basis under the auspices of the FAI ( Fédération Aéronautique Internationale), which is the world body responsible for regulating all aero sports. Within the UK, the Royal Aero Club vests responsibility for Rally and Precision competition at the international level with the British Precision Pilots Association (BPPA). In turn, the BPPA has a promotional entity, the British Rally Flying Club (BRFC), to look after the organisation of UK competitions, promote the sport at a UK level, and to encourage and recruite new members. It is from taking part at these UK competitions, that memebrs attaining or displaying potential to reach the required standard may be selected by the BPPA to form part of the Great Britain Flying Team to represent the UK at international competitions. So what is the difference between Rally and Precision Flying ? In a Rally format event, a competition crew comprises 2 people, one is designated the pilot, the other the navigator. The crew declare a Groundspeed which they wish to have their route timings based on. At a predetermined time before the allocated take off time, the crew are given an envelope which contains navigational clues for the start point, a series of turn points and a finish point. The navigator must plot these points onto a map for the pilot and then draw on the track lines, along with timing marks based on the declared groundspeed, and a 'guestimated' heading based on forecast or observed wind speed and direction. The pilot must then do his best ot fly on track and to time, a feat that is recorded by a sealed GPS logger that can be downloaded onto the judges PC for scoring. The crew are given a series of turn point photographs (which they must determine are 'true' or 'false' in comparison to the actual turn points), plus a number of photographs that have been taken around the route which the crew must try and identify and then mark the photograph's position on the map. There are also a number of ground targets (4 metre size symbols) around the route, which again must be identified and the position marked on the map. On returning the airfield the pilot must make a spot landing into a marked grid, the closer to the 2 metre wide 'zero' line the better. The scoring system looks at the timings, correctly identified turn points, correctly found photographs and ground targets and final spot landing to determine the winning crew. To see an example of Rally instruction clues (taken from a World Championships held in South Africa) Click Here and to see the full detailed FAI rules for International Rally flying please Click Here
The other form of competition flying is known as Precision Flying. In some ways it shares alot in common with Rally competition flying. That is GPS loggers carried, en-route photos and ground targets to be located. The main difference is that route timings are based on a pre-declared Air Speed, no turn point photos are supplied (turn points have ground targets located on them) and the whole route is plotted on a map before the crew get airborne. The main reason for this last difference is at international level this is competition is flown solo (referred to as Open Class in UK competitions). In the UK it is also possible to fly as 2 person crew, which is referred to as Sportsman class. As long as one of the crew holds a valid PPL (and thereby Captain), the other crewmember could be a PPL student or even a non-pilot! The Sportsman class enables pilots the opportunity to learn and hone the skills required to progress up to Open Class standard and from there consideration for selection for the Great Brtiain team.
The final differenece in Precision competitions is that the pilot does not conduct a spot landing on returning from the navigation route. Instead a totally seperate landing competition is flown as part of the overall competition. The landing competition involves 4 approaches into the landing grid , the first three are 'touch and goes' with the final one a full stop landing. Approach number one is a normal power approach with flaps (if required), number two is a glide approach (with flaps if required), number three is a flapless glide approach and the final approach is a normal powered approach with flaps, over an 'obstruction'. The 'obstruction' in this case is a row of bunting held 2 metres above the ground and 50 metres in front of the 'zero' touchdown line and thus represents undertaking a short field landing. The landing scores are added to the navigation scores to determine the winner. Invariably pilots selected for the Great Britain team in Rally events, come from the experienced ranks of the Precision Open class; however Great Britain team navigators have often been selected from Captain/crew members from the Sportsman class. Being partnered up as a navigator with an experienced Open class pilot in Rally can definitely improve a Sportsman pilot's competition technique. To see the full detailed FAI rules for Precision flying please Click Here To find out more about how to take part in competitions and receive training in this challenging sport please go to the Training tab |
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