Only U.S. Pilots can be declared national champion but any pilot can compete and will be scored here. Other event results are included below.

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Paratoys 2013 Results

Thanks to Mike Robinson of Paratoys for hosting the May event. Points from each pilots TWO highest scoring events go into their national standings score. There were two divisions run, Standard and Novice where Novice does not count towards national standings but is otherwise scored the same way.

Prepared by Dave Fore, these have been validated by USPPA Scorekeeper George Hawkins.

Only U.S. Pilots can be declared national champion but any pilot can compete and will be scored here. Other event results are included below.

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Event results are below national standings.

Wings Over Winter 2012 Results

Thanks to Dave Fore for hosting the May event, Points from each pilots TWO highest scoring events go into their national standings score. At present, this is the last competition scheduled in 2012.

Endless Footdrag 2012 Results

Thanks to Dave Fore for hosting the May event, Points from each pilots TWO highest scoring events go into their national standings score. At present, this is the last competition scheduled in 2012.

Paratoys 2012 Results

Thanks to Mike Robinson of Paratoys for hosting the Feb event, Points from each pilots TWO highest scoring events are added up for theirNational Points.

Due to a scoring error these scores had to be updated. The Micro Spot landing werare being reviewed. The spreadsheets are being analyzed by Dave Fore and Glenn Boyd. When the results have been verified they will be posted again.

In the future we will make every attempt to put the results out earlier to allow a protest period to reduce the likelihood of these types of errors. Thanks for your patience!  Thanks to Glen Boyd for validating the corrected results.

Results are based competitions flown where events with more competitors carry more weight up to a maximum of 1000 points per competition. A competitors top two scores are used to calculate a running total.

Only U.S. Pilots can be declared national champion but any pilot can compete and will be scored here. Other event results are included below.

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Here are the 2011 Final Standings

Thanks to Mike Robinson of Paratoys for hosting the Feb event, John Black of Freedom Flight Center for hosting the May 5 event and Britton Shaw of River Valley Paragliding for hosting the May 26 event.

Points from each pilots TWO highest scoring events are added up for their National Points.

Results are based on the Paratoys competition flown in southern California at the Salton sea. As other competitions are flown, their results will be added here and rankings placed in order of score. Events with more competitors carry more weight up to a maximum of 1000 points per competition. A competitors top two scores are used to calculate a running total.

2011 May 26 Endless Foot Drag Competition

This was our first running of the new style, where pilots launch, fly one task, do a spot landing then get ready to launch again for the next task. Each launch and power-off spot landing are scored so there’s a lot less luck involved and a lot more of the fun stuff to watch. Plus it’s far more condensed into one area.

2011 May 3 Beach Blast Competition

This year’s competition was held in its very own field so comp pilots flew unfettered by other traffic.

Thanks to our sponsors who helped pay for what was our most expensive competition to date. We had to cover field rental and insurance. Registration fees did not cover even half of the cost to run it. Our sponsors:

• USPPA.org, FootFlyer.com,
• Trikebuggy.com,
• FreedomFlightCenter.com, and
• www.flymaster-usa.com

Here was some of the information used by competitors. Field Layout, Field Layout with sample flight path. Competitors “Cheat Sheet,finished Scoring Spreadsheet (with winners). Thanks to Glen Boyd for updating and managing the scoring.

Winners of the two informal kiting events were:

• Paul Czarnecki, PlanetPPG.com, MacPara Ultralight 24, 1st place kiting war
• Jeff Goin, FootFlyer.com, Axis Pluto 18, 1st place kiting slalom.

2011 Feb 5 Paratoys

Thanks to Mike Robinson of Paratoys for hosting the event, Eric Dufour of Paratour for being competition director, Marty Hathaway for being lead judge, and Glen Boyd, for being scorekeeper and tamer of the spreadsheet. Also Michelle Robinson for handling registration, CC Moisant and Elisabeth Guerin for running task judging.

Note: Steve Reed, flying an Ozone Roadster 26, was a first time competitor! Congrats also to 1st place winner, Dave Fore, who won his first competition.

Prize money and plaques went to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and Steve Reed won the Best New Pilot awarded by FlyMaster Avionics.

Results are based on the Paratoys competition flown in southern California at the Salton sea. As other competitions are flown, their results will be added here and rankings placed in order of score. Events with more competitors carry more weight up to a maximum of 1000 points per competition. A competitors top two scores are used to calculate a running total.

Paratoys event held at the Salton Sea in Feb.

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The U.S. Paramotor Team has a respectable result for their first-ever entry | Original Press Release
The pylons are packed, scores tabulated and pilots back in their respective countries. It was an emotionally charged contest that provided the drama one would expect when pilots put their best efforts forward. It was an incredible blast, an enormous undertaking, stressful and rewarding. The July Issue of UltraFlight magazine will have coverage and pictures.

Congrats to all three pilots, Jeff Goin, Chad Bastian and Stan Kasica who just returned from their 10-day Italian mission to represent our country. David Rogers and his wife Carmen gave much-appreciated help as crew members.

This was a highlight of the pilots experience in paramotoring. Hopefully others will choose to represent the U.S. and let shine some of the talent we have to offer.

Thanks to those who contributed. We were able to offset their travel expenses by just over $600. It means a lot to the pilots.

Jeff Goin has a webLog at www.FootFlyer.com and Chad Bastian has one at www.TrikeBuggy.com.

Below is a summary of the final results with equipment as of June 19, 2009. Here are the Official results from FAI’s website. A complete, more readable summary of these results can be found as a PDF on www.FootFlyer.com, which includes scores from individual tasks.

Note: The June 19th revision changed 7th and 8th place.

2009 Competition Results from World Air Games

Results below reflect the 2008 U.S. Rankings. They can change if other competitions are sanctioned and flown since results are added.

Current World Pilot Standings from WAG Qualifiers.

The US spreadsheet is included here. Scoring was dramatically different and the competition was incredibly close. Competitors performed exceptionally well. During 53 launches, in sometimes very difficult conditions, only one failed attempt was logged. The only equipment damage was minor tip damage to a prop. Nicely flown. Thanks to Organizer David Rogers, Steward Roy Beisswinger, and many others who made this an incredibly well-run event.

These competitors are now being considered to represent the United States in 2009 World Air Games to be held in Turin, Italy. The top 20 pilots from around the world will be invited to participate in that event, to be held June of 2009.

Individual Events

Congratulations to those who competed. We’ll look forward to seeing you next year! To see prior year rankings, go up one level and select the appropriate year.

Individual Events

Note: “Towards National” means that is the number of points that go into the current standings. It is based on the number of competitors.

Albuquerque Scoring Complete

Nov 29, 2005

Congratulations to the winners of the Albuquerque competition! The results have been verified by George Hawkins and the spreadsheet is included here.  This was the last competition of the year and an impressive showing of very capable pilots. 

A total of 9 competitors came to see how they compared  (11 actually, but 2 were unable to start). Thanks to Mike Thompson and CC Moissant for running things and keeping it fair.

Anyone planning their own competition can download the USPPA scoring system using the blank Excel scoresheet. This can be useful for “gaming” various scenarios to better know where your efforts should be concentrated.

Download: Albuquerque | Blank ScoreSheet.
Note that these sheets incorporate all rule changes that were made just prior to the 2005 convention competition.

Harryport Competition Completes

July 10, 2005

The flight-friendly farm of Harry Rosset enjoyed its first USPPA sanctioned competition with enough pilots to make it count towards national standings. The grass and beans made for a perfect location to set up the cloverleaf and a large round grass circle worked well for all the other tasks.

New pilot Rick Morris showed enormous promise. With only 65 flights, he showed up expertly doing various maneuvers demanding skill. Since we were looking for more competitors, he was a natural. Another up and comer, Tim Kaiser, who has competed several times now but only has 110 flights, nailed two of the spot landings – a high scoring accomplishment that netted him 2nd place. 

This event was worth a total of 500 points towards the national standings. Our next competition is in Albuquerque during the 2005 Balloon Fiesta Fly-In. 

Congrats to the competitors who braved the heat and bumps. As always, great fun, sore muscles and much flying (in short spurts!) was accomplished. Interestingly, and as usual, there was no damage until free-flying ensued AFTER the competition.

Scores from this July Harryport event are below: 

Thanks to Harry Rosset who’s property we used and for being the Lead Judge, Also Jay Reynolds, Nick Cannella, Paul Paulikas, and Alex Varv for helping with judging.

2005 National Convention Competition

Scores from this April Convention are below:

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Final National Ranking

Updated Nov 27, 2004 

Fall Fly-By (Ocala, FL)

Nov 19-20, 2004.

Round 1

Round 2

*Kiting war requires a pilot to keep his wing up for 2 minutes in order to earn any points.

American Flyer (Albuquerque, NM)

Oct 3, 2004.

Parastars (Fly-By Ranch)

Apr 7,8 2004; revised Apr 15, 2004.

Paratoys 2004

Feb 7, 2004

2004 Standings Finalized

Nov 27, 2004

After five events spanning the entire country, the cumulative scores have been totalled. And the verdict is… (click here for National Standings.)

Finals Completed

Nov 21, 2004

The final USPPA competition for 2004 is behind us. Cooperative Florida weather gave contestants warm blues skies for two days of practicing and competing. On Sunday the pilots relaxed to a cross country about the surrounding area.

Congratulations to Eric Dufour who took the victory after two rounds, Jeff Goin garnered 2nd place and Marty Hathaway stepped up to 3rd.

It was a very enjoyable time for the 9 pilots who competed and built friendships even in the face of a strong desire to do well. The results are included under “National Rankings“.

Pictured Left is Terry Latimer, new to competition, who is stretching for a spot landing. Above right is the gold “Paramotor Man” Necklace, given to each of the top 3 winners.

Saturday afternoon included two rounds of the kiting war and, in spite of light conditions for much of it, both rounds had the necessary minimum kiting time (2 minutes) to count.

The National Standings will be updated shortly to reflect these scores. Schedules for the 2005 competitions have not been set but there will be one in April and another in November, again at Fly-By Ranch.

Here are just a few bits of the many memories captured in the brief time together.

1. The Judges are recovering a a humorous moment.
   2. Marty Hathaway enjoys a Sunday cruise. Elisabeth is flying the trike beyond him.
   3. Eight of Nine competitors meet the camera, it was the shots that FOLLOWED these that were memorable. We’ll have those eventually!
   4. There is a free ride.

High Attitude, High Altitude

Oct 8, 2004
by Jeff Goin

Just launching from 5200′ above sea level is a challenge. Results are under National Rankings.

We had the requisite five competitors including a new pilot who had never flown one. Second place was earned by another new-to-competition pilot Mike McGuirk.

As with all these events it was fun just to get together with like-minded fellow flyers. And it’s always a learning curve. There will be two rule changes to make judging more objective. They are:

1. The bomb drop minimum altitude will be dropped. You can come in as low as you want as long as nothing touches except the bomb. Where it stops determines your distance. So if it touches the cone and bounces off, that is still where it is measured from.
2. The touch and go now has a maximum distance. Stepping outside of that distance zero’s the step score (but not the target portion of the score).

Petroleum To Airspeed:
The Ultralight Nationals Completes

Sept 24, 2004
by Jeff Goin

The scores are posted. Congratulations to David Sigier of Canada who earned the most total points and the victory.

Details are forthcoming but the order is David Sigier, Jeff Goin and Dave Rogers, a new pilot who came to Scottsburg with only 20 flights and a desire to learn. We’ve not heard the last of this up and coming pilot!

The last swoop of David Sigier’s “Japanese Slalom” ended two days of the most perfect weather served up to light fliers. Conditions were such that it was possible to fly all day on both days allowing completion of every planned task.

The last Task was quite the crowd pleaser – a low level course involving 4 sticks where contestants rounded corners and kicked sticks in precise fashion within feet of the ground.

A most unique task consumed the entire morning airborne. It involved getting maps, directions, a sealed envelope and orders to “fetch” certain turnpoints. Once identified, straight lines were drawn on the map (while in flight)  connecting the points. If done correctly, their intersection gives the new destination – where you should go land. An awaiting marshal recorded the landing time and took your map for scoring. It was like a road rally in the air. Afterward, pilots were free to fly back to the comp field or ride back in a vehicle. Of course we flew back.

A buffet style banquet and awards ceremony with live music completed the evening. Several awards were given by USUA’s Dale Hooper and Tom Gunnarson including one that went to PPG pilot David Rogers for flying accomplishment in his pre-ppg craft, a Quicksilver MX.

The amount of planning and time that went into this became apparent – it was enormous. And it was designed to make it fun for the pilots.

The people who made this happen gave unprecedented levels of participation including publicity and participation by the city of Scottsburg. It was very, very clear they wanted us there and made us (the PPG pilots) feel welcome in what has been primarily a fixed-wing event.

Any pilot that has enough skill to consistently launch and land can compete in these events. Most of the event does not include the low-level work that some fear and even what’s there can be flown up high just for practice. Next time we can hopefully have more participate – it is a LOT of work to organize and my hat is off to Tom Gunnarson of USUA and all the other folks who have made this possible.

Contestants were David Sigier (Top 80 Miniplane & Nervures Wing), Dave Rogers (Fly Products Top 80 Powerjet & Apco Thrust wing) and Jeff Goin (Top 80 Paralite Sky Cruiser with Silex wing).

Flying navigation tasks are fun – it’s like a rally, you’re given these incredibly accurate maps and instructed to “go fetch”. Flying within 500′ of the point scores a hit which will be read later by the scoring people through your GPS (sealed so you can’t read it).

National Geographic videotaped a feature on two ultralight pilots and was present for much of the proceedings. We plaud the USUA for going to the effort of putting this on.

Friday Day 2

1. Dave Rogers and David Sigier get their gear ready on the launch “Deck”. Getting airborne proved challenging in the hot, humid conditions.
2. After flying around and “S” shaped course and marking points for a line, I wound up missing one and had to revert to the “Secret Envelope” – it showed the destination to be this beautiful airport snuggled up to the Ohio River.
3. Reading maps is a completely different skill than the low level maneuvering required for “flight precision”; but it is just another skill to master where getting there is indeed much of the fun.
4. Epic Helmut Head.
5. David Sigier shows up a few minutes after I did. He found all the points but drew the lines wrong and landed out. I was following my one line (in hopes to find the landing site) when I saw him land and circled down to see if that was the site (or if he had problems). He was fine and I figured this wasn’t the site so I climbed back up,  opened my “secret letter” and followed its directions to the outlanding site. He corrected his error and relaunched to head there himself.
6. The Marshall, Rick, had driven to the airport to collect our maps and GPS’s.
7. Larry Beckley, the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. You’d like him even if he didn’t open up his beautiful airport for this insanity. He is also a commercial airplane pilot and ultralight instructor seen here by his trainer.
8. We ate, the band played and –
9. A few took the opportunity for fancy footwork.
10. 
    The banquet beckons. Many Chickens gave themselves up to the growth of human girth.
11. Dale Hooper, USUA president played MC for most of the festivities and gave away a number of USUA awards.
12. Tom Gunnarson, competition director, pulled himself away from scoring long enough to present a few awards himself.

Thursday Day 1

1. 
   A color guard marched to attention in the opening ceremony with a performance of the National Anthem and prayer. This was a very nice touch given what goes on around us and helps put the freedom we enjoy in perspective. It was moving.
2. The three PPG contestants L to R: David Sigier with his brother Chris, Jeff Goin and David Rogers
3. 
   David Rogers returning from a navigation task.
4. Jeff Goin reading the map.
5. One of the waypoints turns out to be a “VOR” which is used by overflying jets. I hope this didn’t disturb their signal!
6. Sunshine pours over a dewey blanket of ultralights parked on the flight line.

Wednesday 09/22/2004

1. 
   Pilots measure out each other’s fuel with Marshal’s supervision. The first task: take a limited amount of fuel on a triangle, do a touch and go on the “deck” then go hunt for other check points.
2. The City of Scottsburg is providing a web cam atop this pole and Larry, the airport owner is providing wireless internet for pilots.

1. David Rodgers, PPGer from the Tallahassee area, refuels his fly. All competition pilots are flying top 80 motors.
2. We’re being nice to this group: the Marshals.

Big Win For Four

July 14, 2004

by Kevin Tayler

Four strokes that is. The relatively new Bailey 4-Stroke motor made a big competitive splash this year in Europe when Michel Carnet (four times British Paramotor Champion) and Paul Bailey, its creator took consecutive winning titles. Michel garnered the highest score in the French Nationals and then two weeks later was beaten into second place in the British Nationals by Paul Bailey. They were flying Bailey Aviation 4-Stroke motors and Paramania Action wings.

Pictured right is Paul Bailey, the 2004 British Champion.
Photo by Pascall Campbell Jones.

The British Championships, held in rural Norfolk, were concentrated into two days’ flying with 20 finishers (including two Belgium entrants). Bailey and Carnet were in a league of their own throughout and one or other was always going to take the title. Their strengths and weaknesses balance each other out and it was impossible to say who would gain the upper hand until the final scores were calculated. Paul Bailey is cool and determined, giving little away and always performing consistently, especially on those notorious forward launches in nil-wind or shifting-wind which he nailed every time. Michel, with more to lose, made some uncharacteristic launch and landing errors but was true to his free-flying background with a great thermalling task, airborne on two litres for an hour longer than most other pilots.

A complex low moved across the area, making it difficult to judge the weather. Conditions allowed two days of competitive flying, but not without drama. At a crucial moment in the middle of a fuel-economy task a huge cunim produced a rush of cold air and dragged the wind dramatically from SW to N, meaning that pilots who’d flown their into-wind legs at the beginning were also battling the wind on the way back, with the result that many landed out. On another occasion the whole field was laid out ready to launch into seemingly flat conditions to fly a 62km circuit when a deafening rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning ripped through the sky, directly upwind. Task aborted. Ten minutes later it deluged.

Competition Director Mike Campbell-Jones responded with some multi-tasking, an innovation in paramotoring which involves cramming as many challenges as possible into the same flight. We launched in pairs, raced flat-out for 10km, descended to ground level for measured fast/slow runs, moved over to the kicking-stick slalom, then powered up to 500 feet for a timed accuracy landing. In the evening we did the same thing all over again.

The best task was the ‘cat’s cradle’, a complex piece of navigation and route-planning on limited fuel. Numerous turnpoints were specified in different sectors and the trick was to fly the largest possible distance between points while optionally collecting bonus scores by returning to the field to kick a stick after every three strikes: all on 6 litres within a time window. This required detailed preparation as well as masterful flying and a thorough knowledge of one’s equipment, and it was notable that the two competition leaders planned and flew exactly the same route as each other (clearly the optimal one), without any cross-referring.

We are grateful to those who supported this year’s Nationals, including Sky Systems, the BMAA, FFPLUM, Bailey Aviation and Paramania.

First Dedicated Competition Completes

Fly-By Ranch, NW of Orlando, Florida

Photo at right by Bud Johnson – Competitors L to R Ron Hultin, Dan Kriseler, Paul Bailey, Mike Ralph, Jeff Goin, Marty Hathaway, Richard Good and Eric Dufour holding “Tiny”. Phil Russman, an excellent pilot, competed but slipped away from the photo (“I’m not gonna be in that thing after my performance!”)

This is the way to run a competition! Starting April 8th we flew two days of  very challenging conditions without as much as a broken propeller.

A new task has been added that mirrors the FAI’s “Slow/Fast”. This has you fly between to gates as slow as possible the first time and then as fast as possible the second time. Scoring favors the greatest DIFFERENCE between the two.

The event, held at Fly-By Ranch near Ocala, FL was a complete success. Ten pilots put their skills to the test, braving gusty Florida winds and thermals, and did an outstanding job. Unfortunately, high winds precluded running the “cloverleaf”, a high point task where the pilot kicks a center stick and flies around the four corners of the course.

Judging was excellent. With the practice day on Wednesday we were able to work out most bugs by both pilots and judges. Art Runzo was the Competition Director, David Friedrich the Lead judge and George Hawkins did the scoring. Four teams of judges watched over the tasks and kept impeccable records.

No mercy was shown to anyone as task DQ’s were handed out to all when the judges felt they were necessary. Preliminary scoring is complete thanks to George Hawkins. There were 10 excellent pilots flying in the very challenging conditions. Facilities at Fly-By make it easy to coordinate with a large briefing room at the edge of the field (far right Phil & Elisabeth let me interrupt).

The pictured judges formed their favored expression, “DQ”. George Hawkins, Christianne Moisan (CC), Art Runzo, David Friedrich, John Broda and Ed Chikitani made this the best judged event ever. CC earned her reputation as “Miss DQ” when Jeff Goin landed after a 4-second flight in the endurance competition due to a fuel line problem. She DQ’d his next effort since the rules have no allowance for a “second attempt”. Appropriate but still painful!

First Event

Our first competition is “in the bag”. Running of the tasks went very well at the Paratoys fly-in as each pilot got to fly his routine without significant waiting. There were no injuries and the most serious occurrence was related to a non-participant.

Due to the challenge of running these events during big fly-ins, they will be held primarily as as dedicated events with only very limited other flying allowed. This makes it safer for the competitors and non-competitors and improves the ability of judges and pilots to better acclimate to the rules.

Recent Changes

A new Pilot Reference has been added under “Rules”.

As the competition evolves the primary means to that evolution is through rules changes. The most recent revision attempts make it both safer and more fair.

One attempt to improve fairness changes the efficiency competition to reflect the innate ability of smaller motors to fly longer on less fuel. They will still confer some advantage but it will be greatly reduced. This scoring was applied to the Toledo competition and, as a result, a pilot flying a 184 cc motor tied with a pilot flying a 80 cc motor.

Kicking Sticks has been modified so that pilots have only one try but can kick either of the first two sticks to make their run count. Before this the pilot could have up to three tries but that caused pilots to be doing low altitude circles while other competitors had to overfly the task. This also makes it far easier to judge