Risk Management, Antoine Girard’s 400-XC-km flight, Chasing the X-Pyr.
There have been a lot of paragliding accidents recently. Today, I unfortunately witnessed an accident first-hand at Brauneck. It’s time to think about personal risk management in order to minimise the risk of having an accident. Is my glider suited to my ability? When was the last time I took part in a safety training course? Do I practise ground handling regularly? You can read a good article on risk management here (german).
Antoine Girard’s flight through Pakistan made headlines just under four weeks ago. According to XContest’s calculations, his flight covered over 400.6 XC-km. Furthermore, the flight was carried out in accordance with the rules for an FAI triangle. The big question now is which algorithm the FAI uses and what result it ultimately arrives at. Momtchil Momtchev has programmed his own algorithm to calculate the XC km from the IGC file. According to this, Antoine actually flew 401.08 km. In any case, one can only hope for Antoine’s sake that the 400 km stands.
{ in: ‘flight-2026-06-16-04-46-04.igc’, scoring: ‘XContest’, hp: true }
The best result so far is Free Flight (<756.09)
Best so far is Closed FAI Triangle 641.73 points 401.08 km ( <641.74 )
Launched at fix 0, 02:46:04
Landing at fix n-0 at 14:18:07
TP1 : TP2 : 118.02 km (118.015 km)
TP2 : TP3 : 112.57 km (112.568 km)
TP3 : TP1 : 170.49 km (170.490 km)
Best solution is an optimal closed FAI triangle: 641.73 points, 401.08 km
The multiplier is 1.6 [closing distance is 0 km]
Will Appleyard and Marcel Marx accompanied the X-Pyr and put together a film about it. He himself writes: “From unpredictable mountain weather – particularly the intense heat – to last-minute logistics and breathtaking landscapes, this film shows what it means to document one of the world’s most demanding adventure races. This is the side of the X-Pyr that remains hidden from most people.”
