The consistently good soaring weather in the western US, and some
blisteringly fast 100+ mph flights, have put two US glider clubs on top
of the IGC-OLC World League after nine rounds of competition.
Albuquerque Soaring in NM has a commanding lead with 149 points, and
Black Forest Soaring of CO is in second place with 118 points, 37
points ahead of the third place club from Germany. The US Clubs have 5
of the top 8 spots with Warner Springs Gliders of CA placed 6th, the
Ridge Soaring Irregulars of PA ranked 7th and The Soaring Society of
Boulder in CO holding 8th.

The IGC-OLC World League is an multi-national decentralized soaring
competition sanctioned by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale
(FAI) that runs in conjunction with the aerokurier Online-Contest for
19 consecutive weekends during the Northern Summer season. Club members
flying from their Club's home airfield on the competition weekend days
are scored on an optimized 2.5 hour sprint task, all in gliding flight,
with the finish altituide no lower than the start. The longest
cross-country distance flown in 2.5 hours is handicapped by the
glider's performance index to generate a handicapped average speed. The
top three club member's speeds are added to get the club's speed score
for the weekend round. Each club is ranked by total speed in their home
country, then the top 5 clubs from each country are entered in the
international scoring for that round. Scoring is similar to
Formula-One, with each higher finishing position worth one additional
point for the round. Scoring is totaled to the end of the season to
declare the overall winner.

Round 10 begins this weekend. You can participate by claiming your
flights in the OLC. All national and international scoring is
automatic, so there is nothing else to do. To claim your flights, all
you need is an approved logger in your glider, and web access to
process the claim. For more info, including links to detailed rules,
see the SSA-OLC web site at:

http://www.ssa.org/members/contestreports/OLC.htm

You can follow the IGC-OLC World League scoring at:

http://www.fai.org/gliding/olc.html

You can also get more info on the Soaring Society of America and its
participation in the OLC by email to:

olc at ssa dot org

Doug Haluza
SSA-OLC Administrator