In this conversation I sit down with Brett Janaway, the organizer of the SRS series to discuss the evolution of this exciting new take on paragliding competitions, the structure and scoring of the SRS, and the unique vibe that sets it apart from traditional events. Brett shares insights into the challenges and successes of organizing competitions, the importance of community, and the non-profit nature of the SRS, which aims to enhance the sport while providing a fun and competitive environment for pilots. In this conversation we discuss the evolution of sports wings in paragliding, the impact of new safety regulations, and the balance between safety and competitiveness in the sport. We delve into the recent changes in ballast limits and performance limiters, the introduction of a lightweight world champion, and the implications of team size changes for national competitions. Finally, Brett provides insights for newcomers looking to enter the competitive paragliding scene. Enjoy!
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Brett Janaway has been organizing competitions since 2002. The SRS series aims to create a fun and competitive environment. Competitions are linked to allow cumulative scoring across events. The SRS uses a unique scoring system to accommodate varying participation levels. The vibe at SRS events is more relaxed compared to traditional competitions. High-level pilots participate, enhancing the competition experience. Local teams help organize events while maintaining core standards. Qualifiers are introduced to ensure event readiness and pilot entry. The SRS operates as a non-profit organization, focusing on community and sport development. Ruth’s commentary adds a unique and engaging element to the events. The evolution of sports wings has significantly improved performance. New regulations are being implemented to ensure safety in paragliding. Limitations on sports wings are necessary to preserve the sport’s integrity. The introduction of ballast limits aims to enhance safety for pilots. Data collection in paragliding is lacking, making it hard to assess safety measures. The lightweight world champion title encourages manufacturers to improve small wings. Team size changes aim to create fairness in national competitions. Newcomers should gain experience in local competitions before entering SRS events. The SRS environment accelerates learning for competitive pilots. Combining different paragliding events can create exciting opportunities.
Sound Bites
“The vibe is better.” “The SRS is just far more relaxed.” “It’s a pure racing series.” “I cannot touch one cent of the profits.” “They’re having a blast here.” “It really has changed the sport.” “It’s a magical place to race.” “It’s been a lot of fun.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background of Brett Janaway 03:11 The Genesis of the SRS Series 05:56 Structure and Scoring of the SRS 08:53 Popularity and Vibe of the SRS 11:56 Event Organization and Team Dynamics 14:57 Qualifiers and Entry into the SRS 17:59 The Non-Profit Nature of the SRS 20:58 Conclusion and Future of the SRS 21:08 The Evolution of Sports Wings 25:07 Safety and Regulation Changes in Paragliding 31:43 Balancing Safety and Competitiveness 37:54 Getting Started in Competitive Paragliding
Gavin McClurg (00:04.814)
Brett, welcome to the mayhem. It's taken us what, five years? It's a bit of an exaggeration, but boy, it has taken a while, but it's good to see your smiling face. Yeah.
Brett Janaway (00:10.169)
Yes, it does feel like that. Yeah, it's been forever. I say you've been trying to get me. I've been just out of it. It's been absolutely nonstop for the last few years now. I just can't find a breather.
Gavin McClurg (00:27.552)
Yeah, mean, you've been super busy, of course, with Air Tribune, which is your baby, for a long time. And then you've added this. And you'll have to tell me the genesis of all this. But is it just you? What is it? Why did you do it? Tell us about the SRF series, because it's kind of taking the world by storm.
Brett Janaway (00:50.317)
Yeah, guess RS it's it's a fairly new thing was it? It's fourth season now, but for me it's kind of been there forever in the background just building up to it. So I mean if you go back right to the start of things, I guess it was the late 90s that I was doing some local club competitions in the UK where I spent my time then. And the. My mentor there, if you like, he was the an organizer of a.
winter competition where we can't really do a great deal. And you'd get a hundred pilots out easy. And the basis of it was just fun. It wasn't really about the competition. There's a little tiny element in there where people want to win. But at the end of it all, it just finishes with a hundred prizes on a table and everybody gets a prize and the winner gets to choose the best on a table. And the last person gets to choose whatever's left, which often was quite a reasonable prize.
Gavin McClurg (01:47.182)
That's fun.
Brett Janaway (01:47.801)
And yeah, everyone in between got something. That's been the catalyst, if you like, for how I've organized ever since. So I have been organizing for, I don't know, was it 2002 was the first proper one to organize myself. So 24 years ago now. And I've just been building on that. in 2002, that was a accuracy competition at that time. I used to a bit of that in the UK.
Gavin McClurg (02:04.865)
Really? Wow.
Brett Janaway (02:15.065)
Cross Country didn't hit me until about 2006, I think was the first serious competition I went to. And then in mainstream organizing, it would have been the Gin Wide Open in 2013. So we based it all around, was it Sports Wings, the first one? I think we did have some Open Wings, can't remember now. But it was certainly themed on fun, on learning and, but.
every time always wrapped up in proper FAI competing so that they learned the proper rules, proper process during the fun. And yeah, it's just gone on and on. So the SRS in particular, that one was again wrapped up around 2013, the concepts of 13 years ago. That was where, I don't know if you remember the names, we, Gash Perpreet, a good Slovene pilot who was leading the world for, I think,
18 months or something, world number one in the WPS and Nicole Fidel, who's she was women's world champion a few times and super final champion for the women. Both of them spoke to me separately about linking competitions together that they were organizing. At the time though, we had some good discussions and we just felt that it was not going to be that healthy for the sport. We just come out of the
the open class bands and it's just heading towards the CCC taking over. And for those who know their history, they know that the END class, which was, became the new competition wing, that it's supposed to have been a cross country leisure wing, a high end, but a leisure wing. And when the competition scene had to adopt it because open class wings were banned, the manufacturers just...
chase performance and it destroyed the class for a while. And so we were just scared really that that would happen in these competitions if we launched a sports class competition or series that the manufacturers might take it too seriously and destroy what is the leisure wing, the ENC is the leisure wing of the sport. And so we just held off. But was it four years ago? That's when the two-liner ENC was created and
Brett Janaway (04:37.611)
if you like, it's allowed by the certification bodies, because it's all about the folding lines and what you could get past. But it also gave natural barriers to manufacturers on what they can do in designing a wing. So it protected the class to a great deal. So, yeah, that was when the SRS was finally put together and launched.
Gavin McClurg (04:58.958)
What do mean by linking competitions together? Kind of making a series?
Brett Janaway (05:05.657)
Yeah, competitions generally by most people, they just run as a one-off, you the club organizes it or some individual organizes it and they run one a year, much as you do with your own events. That's how the Gin Wide Open had been run as I was running it then, or the Navator Open, so I then took on later. But for this, wanted to link, we're aiming for five a year. We're aiming for them to be outside Europe as well as in, just a bit more global.
and you can fly them as a standalone competition. Just come along, do one, enjoy the week and that's done. Or you can put those results effectively into the season and you can fly two, three or all five of them and try to be the champion for the season by linking them. So they're all standalones, but...
Gavin McClurg (05:56.175)
If you fly, to be the champion, is it cumulative of however many you do or do you get a drop or how do you score that?
Brett Janaway (06:09.475)
So that's where the SRS gets quite complicated. It's got so many layers to the SRS that people don't appreciate initially. But what we're doing for linking the events, we set it so we use the FTV formula. So FTV in competitions, it's usually to drop your worst task in the essence. And a typical competition, you get rid of one task.
Gavin McClurg (06:29.005)
Yep.
Brett Janaway (06:33.953)
What we do is we use that and we multiply it. We take it right up to about 65 % on the FTV. So that if we have five competitions in a year, accounting for weather as well, we probably get about 25 valid tests in a year. And the idea is that you only have to do 10 tests in a season. So the 65 % means if you come to two competitions with normal weather, so you get 10 tests.
Gavin McClurg (06:54.926)
Brett Janaway (07:00.441)
The fact you don't go to the other competitions, the FTV removes your non-scores at them. So everybody at the end of the year has their 10 best. If you happen to go to all five, well, in a sense, you're buying yourself a better position because you can just have more bad tasks during the year and still look for your best 10. But it is possible to be the champion by just doing two competitions. As some of our infamous pilots have done, I mean, we've got Pall Tackerts. Okay, he did quite a lot of them, but...
Gavin McClurg (07:06.135)
cool.
Brett Janaway (07:30.007)
He could have probably won with two. Dylan Mansley, what was he ranked about 10th in the world or something? He did just two events and finished second or third on the season. So it really does work as a formula.
Gavin McClurg (07:43.83)
Hmm and is the You're getting I'm assuming WPRS points and what about that side of things?
Brett Janaway (07:52.621)
Yeah, everything standard katsu. So yeah, every competition has got its WPS points. It's actually an aspect that's gone a bit crazy in a sense. When we started off, we were getting leisure sports pilots in the mainstream. So the points have been awarded were 30, 40 points on the first ones, which is about the same as most sports competitions will offer. But these days we're hitting in the
Gavin McClurg (07:54.987)
Okay.
Brett Janaway (08:20.633)
mid 70s, so about 77 points or something for the next event which is that's higher than most national events will get. It's yeah yeah it's super high level and every event's broken a record at the last event so a lot of high class fair. It's self-feeding because we got good pilots in and then they keep coming and as their rankings get better that boosts the whole system.
Brett Janaway (08:47.587)
But then we do have those high level pilots joining us at times as well, which just feed on into it. So yeah, bit mad.
Gavin McClurg (08:53.922)
What do you think is the special sauce here? Why is it so popular? What is the, is it just a much different vibe than say a World Cup or a Nationals event? Is it much more relaxed? Because it sounds like, from what you told me, it's gotten so popular that it can be kind of hard to get in. It sounds quite competitive.
Brett Janaway (09:15.769)
It's hard to get in, that's for sure. We're closing registration when we've got more than 450 pilots registered now, which is just mad. We're getting wild card applications for the last few seasons. You've been able to apply for a wild card if you didn't qualify. The last event had 45 wild card applications. That's just for the people that refused and they're desperate to get in. It's just mad there.
Gavin McClurg (09:24.526)
Wow, that's crazy.
Gavin McClurg (09:39.214)
cheese.
Brett Janaway (09:43.609)
Yeah, what is the formula? don't know. I think working behind it is that experience over the years on running so many competitions on what people want and what works and what brings them back. So definitely there's that background to it. From the pilot's perspective, though, I think it is just that the vibe is better. It's national competitions are always so serious. And you get into PwC level.
It just feels like so much at stake that you've got to focus, you've got to fly, you've got to be on the hot wing. the SRS is just far more relaxed. But I think bringing with it the wings. The wings are just not quite so full on. The performance isn't far behind, but because you're relaxed in the air, the pilots have this good vibe on the ground. I don't know, it's just not too serious yet. Actually, that's the wrong term. It is serious. It's super serious.
The money that's involved for the manufacturers, the point chasing, it's all super serious, but it's still, I don't know, if you mix it up from the pilot's perspective, it's just not that mad. It's just a, enjoy the vibe, enjoy the day, fly with your heroes.
Gavin McClurg (10:55.415)
And this.
Gavin McClurg (10:58.926)
Yeah, because there's lots of heroes that are stepping down to the sport class wings like Pal and Dylan and that's super fun for the other participants, I imagine.
Brett Janaway (11:09.411)
Yeah, yeah, And we got new heroes coming up through it as well. mean, the people that are just maturing out of this, presumably several of them will go on to PwC levels or that type of thing from this. So they're moving both ways down through it and up through it as well.
Gavin McClurg (11:27.286)
Is there a real training aspect to it? In other words, is there lots of mentoring and coaching and instruction that's happening on a daily basis? Are you analyzing track logs? you, I know. Okay, so it's just, it's like a standard comp, but.
Brett Janaway (11:39.545)
No, it's a pure racing series. Occasionally some events we have had that we've had a day off or something and we've got some good names there. I mean, I Jocky Sanderson, one of our early ones, he was in talks all week long. So it's not that we don't have them, but it's not the focus of the event.
Gavin McClurg (11:56.173)
Hmm. It's not the full, okay. And then is it always your team running it in these different locations or is it local organizers and you're the overhead or something?
Brett Janaway (12:10.443)
Yeah, we take a lot of lessons from PwC as well on how they do things. for me, one of the big successes of the PwC was the fact they brought in their own scorer and their own safety people and tracking people. It just maintains that standard throughout everything that's important. So yeah, we've got a team of about five people in the core that will attend all the events and just keep those standards.
But things like the local barbecue party or the local trophies, that's important. That's why we go to these places and let the local team run the event. And we just do the core boring admin stuff in the background if you like.
Gavin McClurg (12:55.149)
And you said five, I mean, given the level of demand, that, do you anticipate that growing? I know, for example, my event this fall is kind of combo, it's unusual. We've got the open, which is CCC class and down, and then we're gonna do the SRS test event. Am I saying that right? Test event, is that what you're calling it?
Brett Janaway (13:18.393)
Did we give you a test event or a qualifier? We did qualify, we, this time? yeah, so I mean, going to the first question is enough. mean, I think on our side, it's not enough people. The workload is horrendous in the background, really, but it is enough longer term to do what we need to do because the local venues will supply, you know, as big a team as they need, 10, 20 even people sometimes, you see, at these events.
Gavin McClurg (13:21.475)
Qualifier, okay, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (13:45.932)
Mm-hmm.
Brett Janaway (13:46.745)
There's always a big team in the background, but the SRS is enough for sure. And then we just touched on the.
Gavin McClurg (13:52.183)
Hmm. So you'll keep it at, you'll keep it at five.
Brett Janaway (13:57.977)
Well, we're putting in place all the events. We've got Ory Gessup, he's the one that's after our scoring and database systems. So he loves competing in them, but he's always there on tap every evening, keeping that working. We've got Ruth, who's doing all our commentary for us online. So you just go to any of our, or go to the srs.live app during any event. And she's there posting photos and commentary. And even if it's
your grandmother who's never seen the competition before. Ruth keeps them informed and keeps the basic information going out so you can follow the race. Lisa Davis, she's from the US, she comes along and watches all of our scoring. So she keeps that level in there. And Magdalena, she's my wife, she goes along, she's been flying a lot in the past years, but she's stepping back now and she wants to look after the safety side and make sure the tracking is working properly.
looking after the pilots best we can there. And then we got a few others that just turn up at the events quite regularly. So yeah, there's a lot of people on our side. And you mentioned a few years on the minute ago on the test and qualifier and that. So it's probably good to explain that since it's a bit of a new thing this year. In the past, again, looking at the PWC lessons, they always run the pre-PWCs. So they're test event.
We avoided that initially because we didn't want it to just be a way of making money. And it sometimes felt as a little bit like that with the PwC. They'll have 10, 15 pre-events a year, but they only really get a new one now and again. But from our experiences in the first few years, we found we were going to some venues and the venue wasn't ready. We expect the SRS to be a level above an average cat 2.
and sometimes you're turning up at venues and maybe we sort of anticipated that problem but how would we? We haven't seen the venue before. So we've got pre-SRSs this year and the statement is though that if it's a pre-SRS we do intend to return there in a year or two and run a proper SRS. But to avoid that problem of it being a bunny smitter or whatever other reasons there can be
Brett Janaway (16:26.947)
we introduced the SRS qualifier. So it means we believe in this event, we think it's well organized and it should meet the criteria we'd like as an event, but we're not necessarily intending to in there next year. And it's just a way of those pilots qualifying to get into the SRS system. And that's the difficulty really is how does a pilot get into the SRS? It's not that easy.
Gavin McClurg (16:50.553)
Get in if you're not in, yeah. I mean, that's like the World Cup conundrum, which is easier now, but yeah, for long time, it's tricky getting letters and the whole thing.
Brett Janaway (16:54.571)
It's
Brett Janaway (16:59.319)
Yeah, wow, we have s-
Exactly, yeah. So the PwC uses letters. We went for numbers just to avoid a confusion in the score. So the SRS score. But the SRS score, like the PwC, it's based on your single best results of the previous two seasons. And so we just take your W per S score and we multiply it up just to give us a decent number. But the difference is, well, if you must fly it on a PwC wing.
So you just go to any open event, it's got Enzo's, it's photons, it's got whatever wings in it, but you won't get an SRS score unless it is on that C class wing. So if you fly out on your Enzo, your score is zero. If you get 20 W per S points on your sports wing, you'll get an SRS score of 200, which is multiplied by 10. But then the bit that makes the bit, it's easy.
Gavin McClurg (17:55.367)
okay. easy.
Brett Janaway (17:59.481)
But a bit that makes it difficult for the outsiders from the SRS is if it's an SRS event, we multiply it by 15. It's a business model, if you like, for the first year where it's a bit insidious, but we're trying to promote, come to our events, don't disappear off to other events. And that's part of how we've been too successful. given the SRS qualifiers, it'll give that times 15 as well. It allows the outsiders to get in. It's the same.
Gavin McClurg (18:26.446)
so it's the same. So if you're at a qualifier, you're getting the same points. cool. OK. Well, I'll have to pass that on.
Brett Janaway (18:31.137)
Exactly. So that's how you can get some of your guys, local guys into the SRS system and take part. And at some point we'll balance it all out. We'll level it all off and then it'll be much easier.
Gavin McClurg (18:42.977)
And is this now your living? Is this your job? Is this what you're doing? okay.
Brett Janaway (18:47.329)
I wish. I do work full time. I'm full time running comps, but the SRS, it's important to know it's a non-profit. It's a proper registered company, registered in the sports category, but it's got no shareholders. I cannot touch one cent of the profits. None of us in the team touch the profits. Exactly the same as the PWC. So that was important.
Gavin McClurg (18:58.818)
Okay?
Gavin McClurg (19:13.977)
Okay.
Brett Janaway (19:15.831)
I obviously don't do it for free, I take wages, but I don't know, my wages on the SRS, I earn more out of running a single private event than I do the whole season of the SRS at the moment. That'll change, but the whole point of the SRS is just to give what I enjoy doing to the sport really and set some good foundations for the future in sports.
Gavin McClurg (19:18.678)
Sure, and everybody does with the team.
Gavin McClurg (19:28.225)
Okay, yeah
Gavin McClurg (19:39.652)
I'm glad you've got Ruth doing your play by play. That is something that is sorely missing from World Cups since she left. I'm glad you were able to rip her out of there and do her thing. It's so fun. I mean, I loved it and people like my mom who have no idea what's going on in paragliding racing loved it. It's just, it's really missing from, and I have knocked on that door a lot in the last couple of years since we lost Ruth at the PTA.
you see it's really missing, you know, and there's something about that that's very special compared to, you know, an Instagram post with some pictures. I don't know. I just, I loved that blog. It was a blast. And that's really fun.
Brett Janaway (20:21.241)
Yeah, I asked the difficulty of having a sport though, there's no money in this sport at all really. It's how do you get some of that quality, but without the money to pay them. Ruth, like most people who feature in the sport at organizing at high level, you and I and that, it's because we do it for the passion, not for the money. And so yeah, Ruth is absolutely passionate and she's willing to do it for expenses of travel and not a lot else.
Gavin McClurg (20:27.653)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (20:43.384)
Yeah, of course.
Gavin McClurg (20:50.53)
Yeah, good for her. That's great. Well, I know all where it gets to race so you know, so they're having they're having fun with it. I'm sure
Brett Janaway (20:58.285)
They're having a blast here. Norwick is just ecstatic that he can keep his scoring softwares and systems going whilst being able to race. And who knew he'd be so bloody good? He's an amazing pilot. We kept him on the ground all those years.
Gavin McClurg (21:08.844)
Yeah. Well, people forget. mean, the guy could he competed in the X Alps, you know, I people we forget that he's got some history. So with everybody on the you know, the two liner seas, I'm assuming people are on the Arctic are in the photon and, whatever advances is, I don't pay attention enough to the the E &C wings. But.
Brett Janaway (21:20.215)
Yeah, yeah.
Gavin McClurg (21:34.954)
anything to say about that? Is that a great thing? Is that a scary thing? Is it, is it, I don't know. I'm not very familiar with these links. So, you know, I erase the hot stuff. I, I...
Brett Janaway (21:46.736)
Well, I have to know that the average sports wing these days are just stunning. my racing, I don't fly much during the year, but I do a lot of racing in Columbia in the winter in particular. You fly these hundred K tasks that's relatively low. You've got all the end zones in there on the open class and you get to goal. The winner gets to goal and five, six, seven minutes later, the first sports wings are coming in.
Three, four years ago, that was an hour gap and we're down to minute gaps now. So the wings are stunning wings these days. So putting that into what we're doing, I guess the problem we've had to deal with the SRS in particular lately is I was always confident it'd be successful, but it's been too successful. And it is changing the sport now, which I did not anticipate when we started it. I mean, it was always my worry.
Gavin McClurg (22:17.486)
Wow. Cool.
Brett Janaway (22:40.707)
but it really has changed the sport. so from that, we've had to start now, well, we started putting limitations on sports wings straight away. I was in touch with our, well, our partners, we formed them, Ozone, Skywatch, and BGD as the main four. We formed a WhatsApp group on day one and just like, how can we stop this going crazy? So rules like the speed limiter, the tape between A and B, that was insisted on from the start.
because probably about a third of the sports wings on the market don't have it. Usually from manufacturers that didn't make CCC wings, they don't realize the importance of it. These days, that's moved on to limiting aspect ratios. We had that rule, it was due to come in next year anyway. But fortunately, CIBL has recognized this as well with us and we've now just launched the plenary.
Gavin McClurg (23:20.698)
Mmm.
Brett Janaway (23:37.905)
a week or so ago, the new CSC class. So it's putting together, we spent a lot of months researching every sports wing that's been competing in the last three or four years, then looking at the attributes of them and how can we form that into rules to keep them as they are now, just to preserve the nature of them as they are. Not limiting manufacturers design abilities, just things like what we
settled in the end on a 6.8 aspect ratio because the highest aspect we have in sports is 6.9. So we just trimmed off a tiny bit. Number of cells 70-71 is the extremes at the moment. So we've gone for 67 cells, which will just help a lot with stopping projected aspect ratios going crazy. And then a few other rules around that speed limit is obviously mandatory. We've added a weight limit even.
Every single wing that's in the market passes it at the moment, but we don't want wings to get too heavy. So all of that's been wrapped up. CIVL has launched that as their rules for category one for world championships in the future. And then the SRS, which I think will be rubber stamping it next week, will adopt it as well and enforce that probably from next year. So hopefully that will stop the craziness we had back in 2012, was it, when the E &D became the racing wing?
Gavin McClurg (24:41.84)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (25:07.886)
Yeah, cereal. What else is happening in that world that is of interest to those listening? With the plenary and civil, it's been a bit of a hot rock since the accident at the Worlds, at the World Championships down in Brazil.
You know, there's been a lot of social media fire flying around. And I know, you know, I'm part of that base camp group that you are part of and I see your comments all the time and I've just been a witness. I don't like to stab into that very much, but I've just been seeing it all. There's a lot there. There's a ton. Are there a couple of subjects that you feel we should hit on here?
Brett Janaway (25:45.817)
You
Brett Janaway (25:54.229)
I mean, yeah, it was the busiest or the most proposal I've ever seen in the plenary that we had to go through this year. So it was quite a long trip getting to the thing. As you say, it kicked off from Brazil. I think the sport this year since the biggest changes since about 2012 on the new rules, the headline ones you'll see are all the changes to the ballast limits and things, how much weight you can carry.
That one I think is a difficult one, but it had to come in because, mean, if my wife, she's carrying 22 litres of lead and water to try and be competitive on her CCC wing. But it's not that she wants to. In fact, it was so much she pulled out halfway through the world because she couldn't cope with it. But that's the pressure on pilots. And so for safety, I think the limits had to come back.
and safety, sportingness, it's very hard to balance the two or fairness. To balance all those things is super difficult and a political decision has had to be made. It was very well supported that one. But the other changes that will be coming, the performance limiters or the noodles as people like to call them, they were not approved this year but I believe they will be here next year.
The main reason the delegates didn't vote for them this year is because we haven't tested them. So how can we possibly put them into a cat one until they're tested? But the test event is a month away, so I think we'll see them next year in the sport. Again, there's a whole bunch of people who like the idea and those that don't, but mixed with the weight limits, it should be healthy. So we'll see. as... Go on.
Gavin McClurg (27:49.359)
Let me push back a little bit, just be the antagonist for a second here, because I just yesterday did a podcast with Violetta, who you know was a part of the Pilots Union that started with Julian, who then I think dropped out. I'll just take myself as an example. I voted to...
Institute the ballast limits, which you you know the history of this we had these in place back in you know Not too long ago and everybody hated it But I voted because I same thing, you know, Magdalene is a perfect example here, you know, that's just it's a ridiculous amount of weight to carry It is unsafe
We don't necessarily have the data. This is always the thing is we don't collect data very well in this sport. So we don't have that. You know, a lot of these things, you know, like the conical end of speed, there's so many things that were being discussed. And I see you, you know, chiming in on that all the time. And, know, we just a lot of it's opinions, right? This must be more dangerous, but we don't really have the data to back it up. Now ballast, of course, again, we don't think we have the data to back it up, but it's, just, it makes sense. You know, small people carrying a ton of weight.
But to me, I thought it was the vote was coupled with the noodles. To me, if we institute the noodles and those who are listening, what the noodles are is these are kind of like, think of pool noodles. They're much smaller in diameter than that. They go around your bees. They're pretty easy to install. We were gonna try them for a data day at the World Cup this year in X-ray, but the weather was crap. We couldn't do it. But again, we don't really have the data, but this is Luke Armant's
Initiative and what it does is it creates more drag so people flying much bigger wings. It's just basic physics They go better than smaller wings. And so this is why people who want to be competitive on
Gavin McClurg (29:44.75)
who are lighter have to ballast up fly bigger wings because the smaller wings it's a double whammy they don't fly as well and they don't fly as fast and so they're they're they're more of a handle they're more of something to hold on to and they don't they don't go as well so to be competitive you've got to be you got to fly bigger wings so if you're small you got to ballast up to get there the noodles in theory would
remove that in a sense because you if you're big you're flying a bigger wing you carry more drag you know you just you induce more drag with these noodles and so smaller weight people can then fly they don't have to ballast up it'll it'll equalize they're called equalizers and you know in theory it'll equalize the whole group so so i voted to okay let's put in these ballast limits but i thought it was coupled with the
with the equalizers. To me, what we've done is, well, what Violetta would argue, and I tend to agree, is that what we've done is, yes, we've done something that eliminates the ballast issue, but we've also eliminated all these people from being able to compete. a comp wing these days and a harness, a sub with two reserves, you're already up around 25 kg. So you've got about
Now with the the ballast limits, you've got about eight kgs of cushion, which basically, know, anybody who's small is going to have to fly an extra small or at best a small wing and then which aren't really competitive. So to me, we the vote has made it that we've just eliminated people who want a race that are small.
They can't be competitive. And so we've taken safety, we've gone, hey, something needs to be done. But to me, it needed to be done in tandem with the equalizers. What's your opinion?
Brett Janaway (31:43.289)
Well, I was asked the difficulty with doing this fairness, competitiveness and safety and I think with the accidents we've been seeing and there are several high level ones with ballast, I think we just had to take the stance of safety on that one. Yeah, it would have been nice to couple it straight away with the limiters, but maybe we have actually because it certainly in terms of talking with cat 1s, the next cat 1 that's affected by the ballast limits is next year, not this year.
Gavin McClurg (32:13.329)
Hmm.
Brett Janaway (32:13.567)
and that's plenty of time to introduce the balance limiters. So the test event next month, the Bureau could introduce them straight away afterwards, or we just introduce them at next plenary and it still arrives at cap one at the same time, the balance limits. So, this time.
Gavin McClurg (32:27.089)
Okay, so there's time, but it's recommended for cat twos, correct? How does that work?
Brett Janaway (32:32.947)
It's recommended, but I believe the PWCs already said they're going to sit back and watch and see how it develops. And if they don't adopt them, who else is going to adopt them? That's the problem.
Gavin McClurg (32:44.751)
Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I've run a cat too in September and I won't adopt him. So yeah, fair enough. That's good point. So in a sense, we need to maybe relax a little bit because it's going to be a while. Hopefully there's time. It's not the end of small people cat one. I think that's the urgency over here is, well, sweet. You just eliminated me from being able to compete.
Brett Janaway (32:49.825)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, at the SRS we don't really have the problem.
Brett Janaway (33:03.02)
Exactly.
Brett Janaway (33:08.353)
Yeah, and I think we also have to consider the new title that was put into place, which everyone's, what nobody's discussing, everyone's missing. There has now been created a lightweight world champion. The 95 kilo pilot can now be a world champion. And that's more than just a token thing that's been offered. We know the smaller wings are more difficult to handle because there's no real effort put into them by the manufacturers.
Now the manufacturers can chase a world title. Now they have an incentive to make the small wing better. And then there's borderline pilots. Ono, I bet, would fit onto a 95 kilo wing if he wanted to. Yeah, when you start opening up that incentive, maybe then they're gonna go for it. So yeah, I think there is some good stuff in there people haven't taken into account.
Gavin McClurg (33:51.953)
Maxim would for sure.
Gavin McClurg (33:58.688)
Hmm, interesting.
Gavin McClurg (34:03.599)
Yeah, okay. And I think as always, it's also a communications issue. is the thing. Social media is not very kind to all of our brains. There's a lot of riling things up.
Brett Janaway (34:08.365)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brett Janaway (34:14.393)
That's it. And then the other, so the other huge thing that's happened is the change on team size or nation entry size into the world. So we're into cat ones. So previously three plus one is known, which is typically three men and one woman. Although it could be as many women as you like within the four. And then the bigger nations tended to get more places. So the reigning world champion,
could be offered a place as well. And then any unfilled places would just go to high-rank pilots. And what that meant in reality is on a Europeans, a continental event, we typically get maybe eight French turning up and five or six British turning up. And the smaller nations just don't have the ability to fill up more than three quite often. And so what we've done now is what we've done is limited to
three plus a female. It's not a three plus one anymore, it's a three and a one, if you like. And it's going to be selected by nation ranking, not by pilot ranking, which changes things a little. We're no longer allowing the reigning world champion an exclusive place. So it means that the French can only have four now. The British can only have four. Everyone's limited to the four. And that's assuming they have a woman to be the fourth one.
So it is total fairness in teams. It hasn't affected the women's the slightest. Every woman that appeared at the last Worlds can still go to the next Worlds. There was 12 at the last Worlds. All 12 would still get selected and still have their own title. But what it does mean is they're not necessarily scoring for the team, which again was another advantage for the big nations that had the women. 12 nations had a woman and the rest of them didn't.
Gavin McClurg (35:43.246)
otherwise it'd three.
Brett Janaway (36:12.705)
that bonus opportunity has been removed and equalized across all the nations now. So yeah, big change. People will have to judge if it's a good thing or bad thing. I think for majority of nations it's good thing. And some nations, like the British, it's a half full or half empty cup. We're now equalized with the French. We've got more chance of catching up with them, but we don't have the advantage over a smaller nation.
Gavin McClurg (36:18.641)
Okay.
Brett Janaway (36:41.773)
that we had before. depends on your perspective. We'll see.
Gavin McClurg (36:46.13)
But it would still be, you we've got this kind of unusual situation here in the States where our women's team is really strong and there's four there that are just amazing pilots. And it was at the last Worlds, I can't remember how the selection went, but I think we had two or maybe even three women that just qualified on their own. In other words, they were ahead of our best men pilots. So it wouldn't affect that. In other words, if we had...
three women in the top three in the NTSS, which is our, you know, our scoring system, it would be those three and then the fourth person, correct? Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.
Brett Janaway (37:21.465)
Yep, yep, correct, Yeah, yeah, it's effectively, you now have a limit, only three men can attend, but you could have four women attend. could be your three main scoring, one plus your woman. Yeah, that's it.
Gavin McClurg (37:29.648)
Yeah. Right. So it's by ranking, but at least one. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Back to the SRS. Before we wrap things up here, I would love to hear for those listening who have not, you know, thinking about sticking their toe in the water and haven't done it. How do they do it? How do they get a spot? How do they, what?
how should they train, what should they be thinking about? Should they go to other comps first, know, kind of get their, you know, understand how to work the instruments and how Race to Goal works? What would you recommend?
Brett Janaway (38:08.087)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Don't try and come to the SRS as your first events. You gotta know how to fly a comp a little bit first. So at the moment just support your local competitions and do the first ones there. Look for those training events if you can find them. So I know you got the wide open over there. We've got the NiviEx here, the Ozone Sharbras. Find those events that will teach you a bit more. It'll give you those debriefs and talks. And then as you.
compete, you will just naturally gain an SRS score anyway, no matter what events you're in, you'll gain some, an SRS score out of it. And then when you're ready, when you've got the level you need, which at the moment is about 20 W per S points, that's when you can try and get into the SRS scene. And then the SRS will definitely accelerate your learning massively. We're not teaching you, but just being in a strong racing environment, you learn incredibly fast.
Yeah, take on the basics in a local comp and then get ready for the big acceleration when you make it in.
Gavin McClurg (39:14.692)
I know a lot of my friends have been racing the last few years. know, kind of the PwC end of pilots, know, Nick Grease and Bill Belcourt and these guys have been going to the Ozone. It's the US's version, Maddie and Austin up in Chelan have had this Ozone open. I it's what it's called. Ozone, Chelan open, like that. But it's just strictly sport class wings and they just love it. When they go to this thing, they just
dig it, it's so fun. And then the next week is the US Open of Paragliding, know, which everybody's on their Enzo's and X1's and stuff. And that's what I always go to participate in, it's a blast, but they say that it's just a different vibe. What accounts for that? Why is it? And I mean, interestingly too,
I always think of the SRS, everybody's playing basketball in a sense. They've got much more similar gear, which is kind of weird to say that because of course everybody's on an Enzo in a sub or an X1 in a sub. all go very similarly. So it's not like people have a big advantage. Back in the open class days, you really could have an advantage flying a prototype or something. But with the SRS, you still see the best pilots win. It's still...
like you said, Dylan and pal, and you're gonna see the big names at the top.
Brett Janaway (40:38.307)
Yeah, I think the difference between wings in the SRS is actually much greater than the open class. The open class majority of people are on the Enzo, there's the X1, there's the boom brings just coming back, but the performance difference between them is not that great. And the pilots have pretty much maxed it out. Eight years is it of the Ozone Enzo being out. Everybody's just learned how to use it properly.
Gavin McClurg (40:44.589)
interesting.
Gavin McClurg (41:00.252)
This is ridiculous.
Brett Janaway (41:04.917)
In the sports class, the difference between them is bigger, but so are the pilot skills. And that's really, it's the pilot abilities that making the difference. And I think that just allows so many opportunities to have fun days in it, good days and bad days in it. It's crazy. Russ Ogden, you've probably got to ask Russ Ogden what the appeal is, because Russ has retired from Cat 1 this year, the end of last year. That was his last in Brazil.
Gavin McClurg (41:09.084)
Mmm.
Gavin McClurg (41:29.052)
Yeah.
Brett Janaway (41:32.215)
not because of anything that happened in Brazil, but he just generally wanted to retire from high level racing. But the only competition I think he's got to do this, he wants to do this year is Chelan. He wants to get out there and do that one. He's done it a few times because he just loves it. And he says he will come to the SRS maybe next year. So I don't know, ask Russ the question. I'm just an organizer.
Gavin McClurg (41:42.897)
Yeah.
Gavin McClurg (41:46.226)
It's a magical place to race.
Hmm Interesting Yeah, that's a good one to ask him. Yeah, that's a good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're tainted Well Brett, thanks, man. I really I really appreciate I really appreciate hearing about all this We're of course really excited to host one of your events this fall with the with the wide open That'll be really fun. It's gonna be interesting to combine them. I don't know that that's been done. So we're really trying to make it
Brett Janaway (42:02.553)
you
Gavin McClurg (42:18.994)
We're going to have these two divisions and I think it's all going to work out, but it'd be cool. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and it'll be nice to kind of combine it and see how that works. But congratulations for pulling this off and kind of leading the charge and creating something that people are really excited about. We need that in free flight. Hike and Fly did that during COVID and everybody's jazzed about that. so it's a kudos to you. Appreciate it.
Brett Janaway (42:26.617)
Yeah, we'll see.
Brett Janaway (42:48.739)
Yeah, no, that's very welcome. No, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm sure we'll be doing it for a long time yet.
Gavin McClurg (42:54.842)
Yeah, good for you. Appreciate it, yeah. Thanks.
Brett Janaway (42:58.403)
Cool. We'll see you in the States sometime. We'll have one over there soon.
Gavin McClurg (43:02.94)
That'd be great. I'd love it. I'd like to be the first one. So yeah, let's keep an eye on that space.
Gavin McClurg (43:11.443)
All right, bud. Here, I'm gonna hit stop.
