Next week, 50 pilots from 11 different countries will compete at Albi Le Sequestre aerodrome northeast of Toulouse in France in the 25th FAI (Fédération Aéronautique International) World Precision Flying Championships. Running from Aug. 22 to 25, this year’s competition will be sponsored by Fédération Française d’Aéronautique.
The objective is to demonstrate each pilot’s ability to navigate a precisely assigned route in a measured time, while displaying expertise in observing landmarks en route, capped by a spot landing at the destination airport.
At the last competition, held in 2019, Poland took top honors with eight pilots registered among the competitors. Other teams will represent the Czech Republic, Norway, France, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, the U.K., Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, all vying for gold medal honors.
There will also be on-site entertainment, vintage aircraft on display and an airshow at the close of each day’s competition.
This event looks like it would be a lot of fun for the participants.
We used to have that competition in the U.S. It was a lot of fun but it collapsed in 1978 when the organizers badly mishandled the national event after the regionals were successful.
I assume that they only have an E6-B and paper maps?
I ‘competed’ in the Hayward Air Race (back then) many years ago:
http://www.hwdairrally.org/index.shtml
I was crew in a friends Mooney M20 and we won. Was a fun experience. GPS taped over and pre Foreflight/iPads. Charts clocks pencils and dead recogning. I don’t remember if we even used VOR’s.
Nat, the planes owner, was an electrical engineer and loved numbers, tables, E6B’s and the like. It was a dream come true for him.