Circuit Flights are flights where you fly a course and return to your original start point. You can then use flight optimization software to compute the best distance and choose your flight type from either an Out and Return, a Flat Triangle or an FAI Triangle.
Your start and finish points can be different to your takeoff and landing but must be enclosed by a standard 400m radius cylinder. This means that your tracklog does not have to form a complete circuit but must come within 800m.
The distance between your start and finish points is called the circuit gap and it represents how close you are to completing the circuit. This value is deducted from the distance around the turnpoints to give your scoring distance.
The scoring distance is used to check that a flight meets the minimum distance requirements and for awarding a multiplier.
Out and Return flights commence at a start point, go around two turnpoints then return to the original start point. The diagram belows shows the extreme case of starting the flight in the middle of a leg. In most cases the first turnpoint is likely to be much closer to the Start.
|
|
| UK local records | |
|---|---|
| FAI category: | Free Out-and-return Distance |
| General: | 120.2km (Hugh Miller 2018) |
| Female: | 70.3km (Kirsty Cameron 2020) |
| Tandem: | 36.4km (Greg Hamerton & Vincent Talleu 2014) |
A Flat Triangle is a triangular flight with a geometry that allows the length of each leg to be 15% to 45% of the total leg distance. Its purpose is to reward flights that do not meet the stricter requirements of an FAI Triangle and to filter out shallower triangles which are essentially Out and Returns. To fly a triangle you must fly to three turnpoints and return to the original start point.
|
|
| UK local records | |
|---|---|
| Not an official FAI or UK record category. |
An FAI Triangle is a triangular flight with a geometry requiring that no leg may have a length of less than 28% of the total leg distance. To fly a triangle you must fly to three turnpoints and return to the original start point.
|
|
| UK local records | |
|---|---|
| FAI category: | Free Distance around a Triangular Course |
| General: | 125.8km (Guy Anderson 2017) |
| Female: | 84.9km (Kirsty Cameron 2020) |
| Tandem: | 29.0km (Tim Guildford & Louise Maurice 2005). Note this was awarded as 27.5km under the old UK rules. |
