Bitner Cup

The Bitner Cup (Polish: Całoroczne Zawody Szybowcowe – Memoriał Ryszarda Bitnera, CZS) is the Polish national year-round cross-country competition, organized by the Polish Aero Club (Aeroklub Polski) and scored on WeGlide.

1 General provisions

The goal of the CZS is to develop competitive gliding by encouraging cross-country flying in clubs and by comparing the sporting achievements of individual pilots.

• Any pilot or student glider pilot may take part.
• To enter, register at www.weglide.org. Uploading a GNSS flight recorder file documenting a scorable flight counts as entry and as consent to the public sharing of the flight record.
• The competition is supervised by the Gliding Commission of the Polish Aero Club, whose verification team scores and verifies the results.

2 Eligibility

A flight is considered for the Bitner Cup only if all of the following apply:

• The takeoff airport lies in Poland.
• The pilot is a member of a club.
• The pilot's club is registered in Poland.

The cup runs all year; there is no season restriction.

3 Types of performance

• Distance flights — the performance is the distance.
• Speed flights — the performance is the distance and the speed, flown on a closed course. A flight is closed when the start point (WPT) is also the finish point (KPT).

Flights may be flown as:

• Declared flights, where the start, turnpoints and finish are declared before the flight, or
• Free flights, where the start, turnpoints and finish are determined after the flight.

4 Competition types

Each scored flight is assigned to one competition. Each competition carries a weighting factor fk used in the points formula. A single flight can produce more than one result (for example a free distance and a free speed result from the same track).

Competition	Declaration	fk	Categories (scored distance L)
Free distance, 3 turnpoints	no	1.00	L ≥ 100 km
Free speed, 3 turnpoints	yes	0.80	L ≥ 100 km
Out & return	yes	1.00	L ≥ 200, L ≥ 300 km
FAI triangle	yes	1.05	a–g, see below
2 turnpoints	yes	1.00	a–g, see below
3 turnpoints	yes	0.95	a–g, see below

For the FAI triangle, 2 turnpoint and 3 turnpoint competitions, the categories by scored distance are:

Category	Distance
a	100 ≤ L < 200 km
b	200 ≤ L < 300 km
c	300 ≤ L < 400 km
d	400 ≤ L < 500 km
e	500 ≤ L < 600 km
f	600 ≤ L < 750 km
g	L ≥ 750 km

Notes on individual competitions:

• Free distance: distance from any start point after release, through up to 3 turnpoints, to a virtual landing point, chosen to maximize distance. No speed points.
• Free speed: a speed task through up to 3 turnpoints chosen to maximize distance, scored over the free distance turnpoints with a start and finish that respect the speed rules (the start altitude must not be higher than the finish altitude).
• Out & return: from WPT via 1 turnpoint to KPT.
• FAI triangle: a closed three-leg course. A triangle is "FAI" when, for a total distance below 750 km, no leg is shorter than 28% of the total; for 750 km or more, each leg is between 25% and 45% of the total.
• Declared tasks must be flown to completion in the declared order. A declared task that is not achieved produces no declared result.

5 Route point definitions

Route points (WPT, turnpoints, KPT) may be any points given as WGS-84 coordinates.

• Start (WPT) is achieved by crossing a 2 × 5 km start line, oriented perpendicular to the first leg, with the WPT at its centre.
• Turnpoint is achieved by entering its observation zone — a 0.5 km radius cylinder centred on the turnpoint plus a 90° FAI sector of 10 km radius defined by the same turnpoint.
• Finish (KPT) is achieved by entering a 2 km radius cylinder centred on the KPT. The virtual landing point is any recorded fix, given by its coordinates.

6 Documentation

All WeGlide approved loggers are allowed.

• Self-launching gliders require a certified GNSS flight recorder with engine noise level (ENL) recording.
• If the recorder fails in flight, a second recorder may continue the documentation, but it must then document the flight to the end.

The following must be entered before the flight: pilot name, glider type and wingspan (wingspan required for gliders with interchangeable wingtips), and — for declared flights — the WPT, turnpoints and KPT. Files without this declaration are not recognized by the verification system.

7 Calculating points

Points for every result are calculated as:

points = (10 × L + 50 × V) × fk

where

• L is the scored task distance in kilometers,
• V is the speed achieved on a completed speed task in km/h (0 for pure distance flights),
• fk is the competition factor from section 4.

The glider handicap is applied separately through the DMSt index in the ranking. Only flights with at least 50 points are included in the ranking.

8 Classifications

A participant's result is the sum of their three best flights.

• Individual classifications: an overall classification plus a junior classification and a women's classification.
• Rankings are available per aircraft class (Club, Standard, 15 m, 18 m, Open and Doubleseater) as well as an overall (all classes) ranking.
• Flights are ranked from the 2019 season onwards, only for the country Poland, and aircraft are scored with the DMSt index.

9 Flight submission and validity

Flights must be submitted by 12:00 (noon) local time on the second day after the flight. Flights submitted after this deadline are not counted.

A flight is only ranked if it is valid and the IGC file passes the required validation level. Flights with errors (for example escalated airspace violations) are excluded.

10 Error codes

Flights are checked against the error codes defined by WeGlide.