http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/


The PGWeb guys have created the XContest as a world wide contest for paragliders
and hang gliders. Their idea is to be a service provider to various cross
country competition organizers who want to set up their own rules for their
competitions. But they have set up the XContest as a international competition,
with rules that pretty much conform with those of the HOLC,
http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/rules/ . I got them to set their tow height
limit to the CIVL which we got passed a few years back.


It's obvious how to register.  Just click Registration on the right hand
side of the XContest web page. Once you've registered, this area of the web page
changes and now you are ready to Claim your flights. You can check your flights
and your profile here also. All very straight forward.


The XContest checks your G record in your IGC file. If the file has been
corrupted or modified after it was loaded onto your computer you will not be
able to load it up to the XContest. Like the other contests, you claim your
flight by uploading your IGC file (no OLC files), and adding a little
information in the following dialog box. This is getting pretty standard by now
as I load up each of my flights in all three competitions.


Click My Flights, then click the red ball on the right hand side of each flight
to see your flight details. The XContest provides lots of information about your
flight with details about each recorded point, each turnpoint and leg. Click
around the various tabs and see what is available.


You get to choose from various backgrounds for your flight: satellite, vector,
and bit map maps. A paraglider icon is used for displaying the displayed
location of the current flight values. Maybe they'll allow that to be changed in
the future.


There is only limited information available about the total of all your flights,
unlike with Leonardo.


While you can delete (right hand side of the flight record - although the
authors say they are going to get rid of this) and reenter a flight you can't
edit your flights (like you can with the other on-line contests), which I wanted
to do because I entered the wrong take off locations for some of them. I think
I'll just leave them incorrect until I can edit them.


Leonardo, XC Competition and the HOLC lets you edit some aspects of your
flights, and I assume that the XContest will in the future. Leonardo, of course,
often knows what your take-off location is, so you don't have to worry so much
about putting the wrong name in.


One thing that is missing is any scoring and ranking. It just isn't ready yet.
So you can do all the input that you want, but there is little output. Just yet.
Maybe soon.


I liked the user interface. The use of the right hand and left hand sides of the
web page worked well as you could see without having to choose a menu item what
you could do. The menu was left for national contests, or so it appeared. It
wasn't all that useful.