{"id":20901,"date":"2025-03-24T20:31:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T19:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/?p=20901"},"modified":"2026-10-11T06:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T04:37:16","slug":"civl-plenary-2025-key-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/civl-plenary-2025-key-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"CIVL Plenary 2025: equalisers, CHS harnesses and Hike & Fly \u2014 the key changes in paragliding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 2025 CIVL Plenary<\/strong> \u2014 the annual meeting of the FAI\u2019s free-flight commission, held this year in Budva, Montenegro \u2014 approved some of the biggest changes paragliding competition has seen in two decades: performance equalisers, a new competition harness standard (CHS), Hike & Fly as an official discipline and a unified GAP\/PWC scoring formula. Here is our summary of the key decisions, based on the detailed report by Hungarian CIVL delegate Er\u0151 Zsolt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performance equalisers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The headline change is the arrival of equalisers<\/strong>: foam tubes fitted to the B1 lines of larger wing sizes to add drag and bring their performance closer to smaller sizes. An organiser can \u201cequalise\u201d a competition to a reference weight (for example 95 kg), so there is no advantage in flying a bigger size. In the long term, the aim is for pilots to buy smaller sizes and for manufacturers to invest in developing them. Equalisers are currently allowed<\/em>; CIVL had not yet decided whether they would be mandatory at this year\u2019s World Championship in Brazil, and the PWC plans to adopt them from 2026. Full document: Annexe 32 \u2013 Performance Equalizers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHS: the new competition harness standard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Developed by the CIVL harness working group, CHS<\/strong> is to harnesses what CCC is to competition wings \u2014 with one key difference: CHS harnesses must also pass the latest EN test, so they will be safer than non-CHS harnesses. Back protection has been left to the EN standard, instrument access was largely solved by recent pod designs, and harnesses must allow pilots to get in and out without using their hands (magnetic closures solve this). The tail wrapping around the pilot\u2019s head proved impossible to test reliably, so CIVL can convene experts to review a harness after incidents. The current proposal makes CHS mandatory at Cat 1 events from 2030; the PWC and SRS will set their own dates. Draft document: Annexe 26b \u2013 Competition Harness Specification<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hike & Fly becomes an official discipline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hike & Fly is now recognised by CIVL, with its own WPRS ranking. The first Paragliding Hike & Fly World Championship<\/strong> will take place in Panticosa, Spain, from 6 to 13 June 2027 \u2014 time for national associations to start building their teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandatory live and satellite tracking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After the tracking-related accidents of the past year, Cat 1 events will require pilots to carry their own satellite tracker<\/strong> (Garmin inReach or SPOT) in addition to the organiser\u2019s trackers, and Cat 2 events will require all pilots to be live-tracked, with phone apps such as XCTrack or SeeYou Navigator accepted. Rules on flying without a tracker have also been tightened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unified GAP and PWC scoring<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to J\u00f6rg Ewald\u2019s work, the CIVL GAP and PWC formulas have been merged into a single standard, with changes focused on stopped tasks, which had led to dangerous situations in rain and thunderstorms. Score-back time stays at 5 minutes for paragliders and 15 for hang gliders; open distance tasks and ground starts disappear; results will show one decimal place; and cylinder tolerance drops to 0.1% in 2025 and 0% from 2026, with the absolute 5-metre tolerance unchanged. The goal line is now oriented along the true direction of arrival, following Daniel Dimov\u2019s proposal. Full document: Annexe 39za \u2013 Unified Scoring Formula<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other decisions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Organisers must now upload all IGC files and a safety report after each competition; prior notice is no longer required for free-flight record attempts; and Ni\u0161 (Serbia) won the bid for the 2027 World Championship against Pegalajar (Spain). A proposal by Kuba Sto for a new WPRS formula was left for further analysis before a vote next year: Annexe 39zb \u2013 WPRS Formula Modification<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Er\u0151 Zsolt\u2019s full original report:<\/strong> https:\/\/hyperpilot.substack.com\/p\/paragliding-changes-in-2025-equalizers?sfnsn=scwspwa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2025 CIVL Plenary \u2014 the annual meeting of the FAI\u2019s free-flight commission, held this year in Budva, Montenegro \u2014 approved some of the biggest changes paragliding competition has seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,529,524],"tags":[2609,1708,618,2608,1543,2610],"class_list":["post-20901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-competition-xc","category-ojovolador-choice","category-paragliding","tag-chs","tag-civl-en","tag-competition","tag-equalizers","tag-hike-fly-2","tag-scoring"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20902,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20901\/revisions\/20902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ojovolador.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}