Hi there everybody, welcome to another episode of the Cloud Based Mayhem. My plan this week was to release what you're about to hear as just a short primer and then do the show on the back side of that. But just got off the horn here with Bill Hughes and the primer turned into about a 40 minute talk and so I'm just going to leave this one as a full show. I am traveling right now, helping my mom out with the surgery so I do not have my pro gear with me. But hopefully the sound will be all fine and dandy on my end. This is basically, I've been getting a lot of questions on how to get into World Cups. How does it all work? What does WPRS mean? What is civil? What is FAI? And we answer all this for you.
Bill works for all of these organizations. He's the treasurer of the World Cup to the PWCA and he works for civil. And he's been at this game an awful long time and understands it intimately and understands Cat 1 and Cat 2 and NTSS and rankings and letters. And here you go, we explain it all. If you're wanting to play a little bit at the highest level. Have a listen. Cheers.
Bill, good to see your face. Hasn't been too long since we were just racing down at the Menarca and the Superfinal. I've been getting, as I've told you before we started recording, I'm getting a lot of questions from listeners who are keen on watching this stuff. But don't really understand how it works and how you start competing in World Cups. And so I thought... I thought I'd go to the expert. The guy who works for all these organizations and understands it better than anybody and also understands the scoring. And so I thought where we'd start is just the difference between the various organizations. What is civil? What is the FAI? What is the World Cup? How do they differentiate? How do they work together?
Why is it important? Let's start there.
Okay. Great to be here again. Thank you, Gavin. And good to see you. Wish it was in warmer conditions like we had in Mexico.
It's just perfect every day, isn't it? It's just an amazing place.
That was nice. That was nice. Yeah. So all the organizations are kind of confusing. So at the kind of like top is FAI. So FAI is responsible for all air sports all around the world. And they're actually an Olympic... organization. So even though paragliding isn't an Olympic sport, there are other air sports that have been Olympic sports or, you know, demonstration sports, various things. But they're actually affiliated with the IOC. So that helps a lot of countries, especially like in Asia, get sponsorship dollars and things like that because they can say, hey, FAI wants to do a competition here. You know, they're an Olympic affiliated organization.
And so they can... get sponsorship that way. Civil is one of the air sports organizations underneath FAI. And Civil is responsible for all hang gliding and paragliding activities. So FAI kind of like sets the umbrella guidelines for the various air sports. And then there's commissions for... There's Civil. And then there's like also a parachuting organization. There's a aeromodeling organization and so on. But like I mentioned before, like before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before before category two competition.
And the reason that USPA can do that is NAA, who's an FAI member, has ceded that responsibility to USPA. And so
will every country have, and I'm asking these questions, we're trying to kind of paint the very generic, easy picture for people that don't understand and most people don't. Is USPA something that every country has, something like USPA and something like the NAA? In other words, to have competitions, you have to be sanctioned under the FAI?
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Every country can have an organization and most of them do like NAA and USPA. You don't have to, but if you don't have an organization like that, you don't have to. And don't pay your dues to the FAI, then you can't do Cat 2 competitions and you can't send people to the Cat 1 competitions, which are the continental championships and the world championships.
Okay. And Civil would be the ones who create the WPRS, correct? Are they in charge of the, in the WPRS is the world ranking.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Civil manages the WPRS. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. you're talking about would have how competitions are scored, protested, all the things that go, you know, how, how they're
operated. Exactly. Exactly. One, one common thing that people don't fully understand is, uh, the difference between a cat one and a cat two competition. So a cat one competition, that competition is actually run by civil. So civil sends a steward and a jury, and it's run strictly per the section seven rule book. A category two competition, uh, is the purview of the country who sanctioned it. And it's recommended that they follow section seven and most of them generally do, but you can override, uh, the section seven rules with local rules in a category two competition. And you can't do that in a category one competition.
IE the Menarche is category two open because they can override the rules. So give us some examples of cat one.
So there's, there's four category ones in paragliding. Um, and then there's, then there's a separate ones in hang gliding. So in paragliding, you've got the continental championships. So there's a Europeans, there's a Pan Ams, and then there's the Asians. So each of those, um, is, you know, geographically bound. And so each, each, so like for example, in the Pan Americans, uh, anybody in North and South America is invited to send, uh, pilots to that competition. And then same for Europe, same for Asia. And then the world championship is the overall, you know, uh, is the overall highest level of category one competitions.
And
these are run by whom?
They're, they, they all have a local organizer, but they're, but they're all run by FAI, just like the world championship, even for the, the continentals, the FAI sends a steward and a jury, and it's all run, uh, strictly per the section seven, uh, rule books.
And important to understand, cause we're getting there with world cup, how to get into world cups, but these, you do not qualify to cat one via letters. We'll talk about letters here in a little bit, but how do you make the worlds or the Pan Americans or the Europeans or the Asians?
Yeah, that's a good question. So every, uh, so we'll start with the, uh, continentals. So in the Pan Americans, um, each country that's an FAI member, uh, is invited. There's, there's a, there's what's called an allocation. So it's, there's allocations done in multiple rounds and you start off with every country getting to send, uh, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, usually three pilots. So it's usually three of, uh, of one gender plus one, uh, female. And then based on how many countries sign up and say that they want to send pilots, you, you then allocate more slots per nation based on their WPRS ranking.
So, you know, if Brazil is ranked, uh, number one in the, in the Pan American region, which I think they are right now, they would get, uh, the first pick. And then I believe we're second. So then we would get the second pick. So if, if, uh, let's say after round one, you've got 115 pilots allocated, uh, then there's 125 pilots total. So you'd have 10 slots that you could allocate. So Brazil could send one more, we could send one more, and then on down the list until the competition's full. And if, and if a country doesn't want to send three pilots or doesn't have three pilots that qualify, then those slots open up and are reallocated as well. So, and each, each, each country decides how it wants to send its pilots.
So most countries have a, have a, just a, you know, a normal ranking system like the U S does where they just look at the results of the pilots competitions and, and rank them accordingly, but you don't have to do it that way. So some countries, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, uh, do it, do it a little bit more arbitrarily. France, for example, um, doesn't follow their ranking at all. Their, their team leader just chooses who they want to send. Yeah. It's 100 %
arbitrary. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was curious to find that out. So they just decide based on who's, who's racing well at that level and, you know, team dynamics and they choose that
way. Exactly. Exactly. So, so that's how the Continentals works. And then the Worlds, uh, works exactly the same way, just on a world, world level. So. Um, you know, and
the Continentals happen every year, but the Worlds are every other year,
correct? No, they're both every other year and they alternate. So this year is Worlds. So there won't be, uh, Pan-Americans, um, or Asians. And then next year we'll have the Pan-American, Pan-Americans, Asians, and Europeans.
Okay. So next organization, I think we should talk about is the World Cup. How are they different? How is, how, and how do you go, compete in World Cups?
Okay. Yeah. The World Cup is really a, a completely separate organization. However, World Cup competitions are also Cat 2 competitions. So you do still get WPRS points for them. Um, but aside from that, there's really, there's really no, no linkage. So World Cup was set up, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago by a group of pilots that just kind of wanted to have, uh, their own thing. Um, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, outside the, the, the civil structure. I think back then, um, civil and FAI were like more complicated and they just, they, they wanted something simpler that they could decide how the scoring was going to work and so on and so forth. So World Cups are run by the Paralympic World Cup Association, which is a nonprofit, uh, headquartered in France.
And there's five World Cup events each year. And then there's a Superfinal. And in addition, to those there's pre World Cups, which allow people to qualify for the World Cup events. And then it also allows the World Cup to vet, um, potential locations for future World Cups. They check out the organizer, they check out the site to see if it's, you know, to see if it's at the level of a World Cup. World Cups are, are some of the highest World Cup competitions have some of the highest level pilots, uh, of the World Cup. So, uh, so, uh, so, uh, so, uh, so, uh, so, uh, of any, uh, of any competition because of, uh, of the way you qualify for World Cup events.
Okay. So if you're a budding comp pilot, you want to start racing pre World Cups, World Cups, what's the path?
Okay. Yep. So there's, there's a couple of different ways you can get into the, to the World Cup. So World Cup selection is done by letters and everybody will have two letters and there's a number of different ways you could get those letters. So the, the kind of easiest way to understand is every country can have a national championship, uh, and a league and your ranking within your league and within your national championship, um, gives you a letter. So for example, for the U S our league is the NTSS ranking. That's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our, that's our national ranking. And then the national championship is our national championship.
So it's the, it's the U S Nats. So it's your score, uh, within that. Um, so those generate letters and there's a, what's called a nation's table. So each, uh, the, the, the level of the letter that gets generated is based on essentially how good the country is. So there's from level one to level seven. So, uh, so there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, France is pretty much always a level one country. So it has really good letters. Um, let me look at something real quick and I'll, I'll tell you. So if you're, if you're a level one country, um, your winner of your national championship is going to get an A and I think second place also,
also gets an A. Uh, yeah. And, and then it goes, down until, let's say, if you're a level one country, your 20th place pilot gets an E for a letter. A country that's not as good like a level seven country, the winner of their national championship would get a D as their letter as opposed to an A. And the way the level is calculated is you take the top three pilots from that country in the last world championship and the top three pilots from all of the World Cups that were flown last year.
So taking France, for example, in the last world championship they had the second, third, and fourth ranked pilot. So that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good. And four of the World Cups last year were won by French pilots. Four of the five. Plus the Superfinal. Plus the Superfinal, exactly. So that's three points from PWC events and nine points from the World. So you add those up and that's their score. And the lower your score is, the better
your level is. So this year there's five countries that are level one and then a handful of countries that are level two. We're level two which is actually really good. And then it kind of like drops off from there. So last year we were level three. We had some pilots that did pretty well in World Cups last year and so we bumped up to level two this year.
Interesting. And you're looking at something. What are you looking at to go see that? Can anybody look at that?
You can look at it. So if you go to the PWCA website, you can click on rules and you can see the nations table and then you can also see the rule book. So the nations table changes every year and it gives the current ranking of all the nations. And then the rule book has the table that says, okay, if you're a level one, then these are the letters that you get. If you're a level two, these are the letters that you get.
And that was interesting. You just spelled out something that I was unaware. The nations tables is based on results. And in a sense, WPRS is, obviously, but that's not the same. The two don't seem to tie in right there when it comes to letters. I didn't know that.
Yeah, exactly. One of the things that PWC doesn't like about WPRS which I think is a fair criticism, is that WPRS is very European-centric. So if you live in Europe, on any given weekend, there's probably two or three national championships that you can drive to that are going to give you really high WPRS points because top pilots from Germany and Switzerland and France just might decide to show up on any given weekend at a competition. Whereas in the U.S. and Asia, that's not the case at all. Yeah,
we don't have it. Any comps that would be equivalent. Exactly, yeah. We don't have enough people.
So it's a real catch-22. We don't have high WPRS-ranked pilots, or not as many as Europe has. So therefore, our competitions aren't worth as much. And because our competitions aren't worth as much, we, again, can't
get ranked.
Can't get ranked. So it's just kind of a cycle. So the nations table is meant to deal with that. So like, for example, if we have three, three really hot pilots that go to a bunch of PWC events and score reasonably well, we can generate good letters for the country. We don't have to, you know, we don't have to somehow figure out how to draw, you know, Russ Ogden and Luc Armant over to the U.S. to fly competitions in order to to get up in the high WPRS rankings.
Yeah. And I noticed, you know, this year as an example, to back that up, I think I was third in the in the league results and I got an A from it. Yeah. I was blown away. That's really surprised me. And so that's because the nation's table was two.
Right. Exactly. We're second. We're second. Yeah, exactly. Wow. That's because we're level two in the nation's table this year. Yeah.
Okay. Fascinating. Okay. So to just summarize this for someone getting into it. Okay. Well, actually, first, how do you get into a PWC? Okay. Yeah. PWC.
Yeah. So, yeah. So anybody can enter a pre PWC. So a pre PWC is two. It's just an open event. They're not allowed to, you know, discriminate based on, you know, WPRS or letters or anything like that. So it's just open registration. Anybody can sign up. And it's typically pretty easy to get into a lot of the pre-PwCs. In any given year, there might be 10 or 12 pre-PwCs. And they're just regular cat-to events that the organizer has decided to make a pre PWC. And the PWC has to accept it. It has to be like a reasonable, you know, a reasonable chance that this could be a venue for a future PWC at some point.
We're not going to make some completely rinky-dink competition, you know, with eight pilots in the middle of nowhere, a pre PWC. So that's the best way. That's how I got in. I got in by doing a pre PWC. And it was the one in Chelan, actually, that happened, you know, years ago, I think 15 years ago. It was like 16 years ago or whatever. So I got a good enough letter from that to get into a PWC. And then I got a good enough score from that PWC to get into the Superfinal that year. So it's a ladder effect. So you get letters from pre-PwCs, from your national championship, from your league. And then you can also travel to other people's national championships.
So you could go to Canada's national championship. For example, it wouldn't be as highly ranked as the U.S., but it's still going to generate a letter. If you win the Canadian national championship, you're going to get a decent letter out of it. You probably won't get an A, but you might get a C or a B, something like that.
Now, I think something that would be wise for us to talk about, because this is, again, it's going to be a little different, but for the most part, from the people I've asked, it's pretty similar. Now, France is subjective to make the world's team. But they also have their own ranking system, as we do. So folks listening, if you're not part of the U.S., we're going to be talking about the NTSS, but it's almost certainly very similar in the country you're in. So Bill, just explain how the NTSS works and why it's important. Yeah, yeah.
So the NTSS is our ranking system. So it's intended to give U.S. pilots a fair shot at getting a decent ranking and possibly being selected for a Continentals or a world team. And the way it works is you take your best four scores, and only two of those can be foreign comps. So what we're trying to avoid is we're trying to avoid our best pilots just flying around the world and doing other people's comps. And getting a bunch of points from those. And A, not supporting the U.S. competition scene by not going to the events, which hurts our organizers.
And then B, competing against the actual U.S. pilots so they're proving that they're at a certain level versus the U.S. pilots. So like, for example, you might have... And we do count Mexico as a U.S. comp. We made that change, I think, like four or five years ago. So your best scores might be Menarca and Chelan, for example. Those two competitions. And then two foreign competitions. And those generate a certain number of points. And that adds up to your NTSS score. Each competition can have a maximum of 600 points. So first place in a fully valid comp in the U.S. would get you 600 points.
If you go to a foreign competition, then the pilot quality validity is based on the U.S. pilots that are there. And then foreign pilots are given a score analogous to the score that a U.S. pilot would give based on their WPRS ranking. So go ahead.
Well, I was just going to say, for example, and I think this is where people get really confused. You know, if you're trying to get a letter, there's a comp going on right now in Colombia, that I hadn't even heard of. It's happening right now. It's on Air Tribune. And the pilot quality is really high. Seb Espina is there. He was top 10 in the Superfinal. And there's a bunch of really good pilots there. And so that's going to be a fully valid comp. And as I understand it, looking at it. And, you know, if you did reasonably well there, you're going to get a really good score. And that could be one of your two foreign scores. And again, if you're not in TSS, it's going to be very similar. You know, it'd be a very important comp for a British citizen to go to, or Swiss or anybody.
You know, there's talent from all over the world. They're highly ranked in WPRS, at least the top 20. You know, Michael Gerlach's there. He was top 10 in the Superfinal. So you've got great quality there and you can get a great score. And then that alone will not give you a letter, but that's going to be one of your top scores if you do well. And that Will Gadd up when it comes to the league score.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
So two letters. Explain that. How does that work?
Yeah. So you get two letters. So let's say that somebody went to three PWC events last year. They did the U.S. National Championship. And of course, they're in the league. So they have, and they did two pre-PwCs. So that would give them seven chances to get a letter. Actually, it would generate seven letters. And then your... your PWC letters for getting into competitions are just your best two. So if you got an A from the U.S. Nats and you got a C from, you know, the pre PWC that you did and everything else is lower, then your letters would be AC. So when it comes time to select people for a PWC,
you start with the first letter. So all of the A's are selected first. And then to differentiate between the A's, you start at AA, then you go to AB, AC, AD, and on down the list. And then after all of the A's who have signed up have either, you know, decided that they're going to go or declined, then you go to the B's, then you go to the C's, then you go to the D's. So that's how that works.
And how does... Okay, I want to go do a World Cup in Brazil. What letters would I need to get in?
Yeah, it's different. That's a good question. So it's different for different venues. Typically, for Brazil, you could probably get in with the C and possibly even a D.
South Africa... So
you've got a C or a D. Second letter doesn't even matter.
Right. You're in. Exactly, yeah. Okay. And then in France, it's probably not going to go below B. Because obviously there's so many good pilots in France and Europe and it's easy for them to get to. For a PWC in Asia, it might go down to H or I or even lower. Because there aren't a lot of pilots in Asia that have high ranking letters, which is why the Paralympic World Cup started the Asian tour, which we can talk about if you want. And then South Africa, for example, sometimes has PWC. And that's hard for a lot of people to get to. A lot of Europeans just aren't going to go to the trouble of getting there. So you can get into South Africa with a lower letter.
So if I was a new pilot and I was wanting to break into the PWC, I would look at the list of pre-PwCs and I would pick one that is... I wouldn't pick one in France or in Spain. I wouldn't pick one in Europe at all because it's going to be highly competitive and there's going to be a really good pilot there. I would pick one in... South America. Last year there was one in Chile that was... Anybody could have gotten into that. Or I'd pick one in Korea or South Africa or Canada if Canada had a pre PWC. And then I would just go to as many pre-PwCs as I could and eventually hope to get a good score.
Because really if you're looking to be expeditious, that's the easiest way to get a letter. It's one comp, seven digits. Seven days, boom, you're done. Exactly. Whereas the league, it's the end of the year. It's the rankings as of January 1st, the following year. So it's the whole year. You got to wait around. Yeah. And for the nationals as well, countries differ here. Some nationals are one event. Ours is typically two or even three. Right. And so again, it's kind of the whole season. Exactly. Before that's tabulated and submitted, correct? Yeah,
exactly. Yeah. And, you know, the U.S. has really gotten better and better. I mean, we have a lot of really good pilots now. So, you know, it used to be when I first started flying that it was easier back then to be in the top 15, top 20 in the U.S. than it is now. Now we've got a ton of really good pilots. And so, you know, it's hard to count on getting a good letter from your U.S. league rankings. Okay.
So that makes it even weightier. Right. So as an organizer, and this is curious, because I just recently started being an organizer, what's the doubt? Is there any downside to declaring your cat to a pre PWC? I mean, you know, that was quite easy for us to do. We paid the money and it costs a little bit more, but I think it's relevant to talk about the hurdles that you have to go through. In my case, if I didn't have you, that would have been quite expensive because we have to fly them over. So talk about that just a little bit. For those curious about running comps.
Yeah, yeah. So it's, yeah, there's no downside other than the cost. So when you want to be a pre PWC, you have to pay the fee, which right now is 800 euros. And then you also have to pay for the observer. You don't have to pay for their flight. PWC pays for that, but you have to pay for their accommodations and their food. You have to get them from the airport to the venue and back. So, you know, depending upon where you are, all of that can add up. I mean, in a place like, you know, Chelan or any place in the U.S., you know, hotel costs are high, transportation costs are high. So, you know, that can add up. The benefit of having a pre PWC is obviously it generates letters, which should increase participation.
So you're going to draw pilots that you wouldn't normally get if it wasn't a pre PWC because people are going to do, like I said, they're going to look at the pre PWC list and say, hey, that looks like a cool place to fly. I've always wanted to go to Red Rocks and I might be able to get a letter. So I think I'm going to sign up for that.
Okay. We missed anything here? This is a really good, I mean, that's, I think that's, we've hit a lot there, but we've got Civil, FAI, USHPA, NAA, you know, FAI is kind of the overriding umbrella. We've got CAT-1, CAT-2, got the letters. We've got the, each country's ranking system and how we get in. And I, I didn't know, that's interesting. I mean, really when it comes down to it, you know, the higher level World Cups, yeah, you're going to need both, but at the lower level, you just need one letter. Ah, I know what I need to ask you. Those letters last forever?
No, no, no. It's good. That's a good point too. Yeah. So that would be nice. Actually, it wouldn't be nice. That would be nice,
wouldn't it? Yeah.
So, so no. The only, the only letter that lasts forever is if you win a Superfinal, you get a permanent AA. So it's, yeah. So, so you never. You get a
permanent AA. I just thought you got permanently into the Superfinal, but that's just, you're locked in, huh?
Yeah. Permanent AA. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. It would be nice if you, if you won more than one Superfinal, if you could give them away to your friends so that like people like, people like Onurin could like give his away or something. There you go. Yeah. You're having a. Yeah. He's got something. He doesn't need. But yeah. So, so after, after the current year, you can, you can use a letter from the previous year, but it's devalued by two. So if you had a B this year and then your results for 2023 were just crap, you could, you could take the B and devalue it to a D and you can keep that. After that, it doesn't devalue anymore. So you can only, you can only keep that.
You can only keep that devalued letter one year. And if, and if the letter came from a PWC event, it's only devalued by one. So if you've got a C, if you've got a C from a Paralympic World Cup event, it would just devalue to a D. Whereas your national ranking or your league score would devalue by two.
Wild cards. That's what I was going to ask you. How's that work?
So each PWC partner gets one wild card per year. And so, you know, typically they give those wild cards to factory pilots.
A lot of times it'll be a factory pilot who's got a prototype they want to try out. We don't call them prototypes anymore, but each manufacturer can fly a ready for certification wing in a, in a PWC competition. So they send in all the paperwork. They say, you know, here, this, this wing is ready for certification. We want to try it. We just need to test it out in real, real world conditions. And if, if they have a pilot, if they don't have a pilot who's qualified to fly it in that event, they can use their wild card to get that, to get that pilot in. The partners, there's a bunch of PWC partners that aren't equipment manufacturers. And so they allocate their wild cards, however, however they feel like doing it.
The other, the other way you can get a wild card is from an organizer. So an organizer gets a hand. They get a hand full of wild cards that they can allocate. And typically they allocate them to people who have helped sponsor them. So like, for example, if there's a competition in Brazil and that, and the, you know, the local phone company is a sponsor, stuff like that. They might, they might give the, the wild card to somebody who helped kind of make that happen or whatever, but organizers can, can use whatever criteria they want to give those out. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Wildcards. I was going to say, you know, when I first got into the game, what I learned too, was it often looks pretty desperate. You're not going to get in and then you get in, you know, if you're, if you're okay with kind of last minute travel, a lot of people tend to cancel late and they just keep going down that list and, and, you know, you just keep an eye on that list and sometimes you get the call.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't, this is actually, I don't. I'm not really crazy about the way it works, but like typically what people do now is they just, at the beginning of the year, they just sign up for all the PBC events. Yep. Regardless of whether they have any intention of going or not. And then when selection happens, they, they get selected. You get notified by the PBC. Hey, you've been selected. You have seven days to let us know whether you, whether you can, whether you can attend. And then they look at their calendar and they might. They might realize, oh, I can't attend this anyway. And so then they'll decline and that'll, that'll just keep happening until the competition's filled up. So you're right. A lot of times, a lot of people will have signed up at the beginning of the year.
Since then, they've gotten a conflict. And so they'll, they'll decline or they'll cancel. You know, they, they, they said yes initially, but then something happened and they decided to cancel. So there's quite a bit of that. So yeah. Don't lose hope. I mean, if you sign up for an event, you know, don't lose hope until the last minute. And you're right. If you, if you're the kind of person that can be flexible and can, can, you know, go at the, you know, relatively last minute, like in the, you know, with a weeks or week or two weeks notice, you, you might get in.
Bill, this one's important. How do, how do we tell the PWC that we have, we need a letter? Right. What am I trying to say? You have to declare your results. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. We should have done that. So the first thing that you should do, if you're interested in PWCs is go to the website and create an account. And so it doesn't cost you anything to create the account. You, you know, enter in your, your pilot info and things like that. And once you have created an account, you can now sign up for competitions and declare your results. So it's, it's just a screen that you go to and you say, okay, I want to declare results and you get a dropdown list and you would say, I want to declare my result from the U.S. Nationals. I want to declare my result from the U.S. League and any other things that every single thing that could possibly generate a letter is given to you as a choice for declaring results.
And then you just say, I was, you know, whatever, fifth, 10th, 15th in the U.S. Nationals. And that then goes to Laura at the PBC. She validates it. So like for the U.S., I send in the results every year of our national championship and our, and our league. And every country has someone like me who does that same thing. So you may sign up and say, I was fifth. And Laura might come back and say, well, actually you were fourth because she's, she's got the results. And so she validates that you've signed up with the right. With the right, with the right ranking. So yeah, once you sign up for the events, then, then you're on the list on the selection list. So if you go to the page for Brazil, for example, you can see one of the tabs is selection and you can go and you can see the selection list.
You can see all of the people who are signed up and whether they've been confirmed or whether they're in the waiting list and you can see where their letters are. So you can, you can kind of like figure out what the odds are. You can, you can look and say, okay, well there's 70 people that are already confirmed.
And I'm, I'm 20 down the list. You're probably, you're probably going to get selected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bill, you mentioned the Asian tour. I don't know much about it. Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah. So the Asian tour was set up really to, to help foster growth in the Asian countries and give the Asian pilots. Um, opportunities to get letters. There's a lot of really, really good pilots in Asia and you know, it's, it's hard for them to, to get over to Europe and sometimes even the U S to, to do events. And so the Asian tour was set up, um, gin, uh, gin gliders. He was really instrumental in, in setting it up. And so it's really just another set of PWC events, um, accepted, accepted, you know, they're in Asia. So Asian tour events are also, uh, a really, really good way to get letters. They're a little bit different than the regular PWC events. So in the regular PWC event, the top 15 pilots will automatically get selected for the Superfinal.
And then depending upon how many duplications there are between PWC events, it might go down to the top 20 or top 25 pilots getting selected for the Superfinal. So the Asian tour, um, just the top pilot from an Asian tour event gets automatically selected.
So the Asian tour events are super fun and you know, they're, they're, they're a good way to, especially for us pilots is it's relatively easy for us to get to most of the Asian tour events as compared to somebody in Europe, for example.
Yeah. And I've heard awesome stories. I haven't gone to any of them. But I've heard, I heard awesome stories about just the cultural experiences and the organizations and the stoke. And it sounds like a must do. It sounds terrific. It
really is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, the Asian countries really roll out the red carpet. I mean, you feel like a VIP. They have like insane opening and closing ceremonies. You know, they'll bring in like, like local rock stars. It's just, it's, it's pretty nuts. That's awesome. It's a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. Very cool. I wanted to ask you. So yeah, that's something we didn't touch on either is the Superfinal selection. So there's five world cups. You said if you're top 15, you're automatically in, does that change? You know, as if it's the Macedonia world cup versus you know, Argentina, you know, if the, if the pilot quality is, is much higher at one, does it, does, do they go deeper in that one or is it just straight across the board? Okay. Top take top 15, get rid of the, you know, the do overs. And then we go to 16 and then on down the line.
So automatic qualification is top 15 overall and top three women. And the only thing that'll take that number down is the validity of the comp. So as long as the, as long as the competition has at least two fully valid days or three or four days that add up to, you know, 2000 points, it'll be, it'll be fully valid below that. And, and it could drop off. So you could get. You know, just the top 10 pilots or just the top five pilots. If you only get like, you know, one task, for example, in a, in a PDVC. Okay. So that doesn't happen very often, but it, it could happen. And like I said, so you get like the top 15 from each and the top three women from each event.
And typically you've got a lot of duplications within that. So, you know, somebody will be in the top 15 of two comps or three comps. And so all of those extra slots. Are then allocated based, based on the quality of the, of the events. But as long as it's fully valid, they're all equal quality.
Bill, super helpful. I really appreciate it. I think this is going to be helpful to our listeners and see in Brazil, dude. Yeah. Happy to help. See you there.
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