The Inter Club League
About The Inter Club League
The Inter-Club League (ICL) is intended to encourage competitive cross-country flying on a less formal basis than National and Regional competitions, involving pilots at all levels of cross-country competence. In particular, it is an opportunity for novice pilots to experience competition flying before they are eligible to fly a regional competition.
ICL is designed as a two-phase set of events: a local event managed by a group of local clubs and Team Captains, and then a Final towards the end of the flying season. Winners of local events can compete in the Final, which will generally be held at a Host club in central England and the Host club will be offered a place to enter a team in the Final. It is not a competition and is, in particular, an opportunity for novice pilots with very limited competition experience to gain further experience in a less stressful competition environment.
Summer events tend to be created as regional groups of clubs, who hold a series of competition weekends between the clubs in each group throughout the summer. Each competition weekend is hosted by a club from within the region. The host club is responsible for providing the organisation and launching for the competition. In regions where X/C pilots are prevalent, some events allow up to three pilots per class. In other regions where pilots/time is limited, only one annual event takes place over a weekend to determine a winner for the Final.
The ICL competition races are held in three categories – novice, intermediate and pundit with points awarded to the top finishers in each category. These points are aggregated throughout the season. The winning club in each region go forward to the ICL Final. In the Final sometimes we can accept a number of pilots from one region that want to represent that region (this is where they are small clubs without the depth of pilots to have a full team.
2021 ICL Winners: Essex & Suffolk GC
Opportunity!
The ICL is more than just a competition. It’s a great way to build experience and learn new skills among friends and colleagues in a friendly environment, including;
– Experience flying from new sites
– Improve cross-country flying ability
– Learn about glider racing which includes use of loggers, map reading, setting up flight directors, etc.
– Gain experience in contest direction, task setting, start and finish line control, scoring and other competition-related duties
– Special emphasis is put on the performance of newer pilots – the ICL has a trophy specifically for the best novice pilot!
How to get involved
Find out who has volunteered to be your club’s ICL rep and ask her or him if you can join in. If there is no one you might want to try to get the ICL started at your club. It generally just takes one enthusiastic driver and to get your CFI involved. It’s as easy as that!
The ICL Rules
These are updated each year. The Inter Club League rules can be read here.
More Information
Although the intention is to provide detail of ICL events on this webpage, the Inter Club League currently communicates through its Facebook page.
If you are interested in forming a group in your region and want further information, please complete the application form. You should hear from us soon afterwards.
