Read the latest flying site warnings

Competitions

It is widely recognised that one of the best ways of improving your flying skill is to participate in competitions. Below are the details of the most popular local and national competitions.

Local and national leagues

The Dales club participates in the popular national cross-country league for hang gliders (www.uknxcl.co.uk) and paragliders (www.xcleague.com). Registration is free for the hang glider league and for the Dales aspect of the paragliding league in which any distance of over 5km flown from a Dales site counts. The national aspect of the paragliding league requires a modest registration fee which contributes to the annual prizes and running costs. Unique and much coveted *Dales XC mugs are awarded each year for cumulative distances of 50km and upwards.  Please refer to the notes below.

More recently an XContest UK has been set up, which promises a modern platform, hassle free igc upload, simplified scoring and several other benefits, plus it is free.  Dales members are encouraged to submit their cross country flights to both the national league and XContest UK (https://www.xcontest.org/united-kingdom/).

National competitions

On a national level the British Paragliding Cup, which usually holds a round near the Dales each year, is where you can sharpen your XC skills in more formal but friendly tasks, pitching individual pilots against each other. There is usually a group from the Dales representing the club at each round.  Check out www.bpcup.co.uk.

The British Championships represent the top national-level paragliding competition, and although it has largely given up on the weather in UK, is always represented by Dales’ pilots. See www.pgcomps.org.uk for more information.

In hang gliding terms a round of the British Open Series (BOS) is normally held each year in the Dales and details can be found at www.bos.bhgcomps.uk.

Club awards

The club presents a number of awards, normally at the end of year AGM or a club night in the spring. Members are invited to submit nominations for ‘Cock of the Dales’ and the ‘Fairbrother Trophy’.

*   XC League cumulative total mug awards.

The following is intended to clarify how they work and eligibility.

1.  You need to be a full DHPC  member across the whole season (1st Feb - 31st October)

2.  Scores are drawn from the DHPC club filter of the XCL after season end on the 31st October of that year. Takes off within the DHPC area.

3   Although the mugs states (kms), it's actually a points based system. We retain K's for historical reasons and it sounds better.

4.  It's unlikely as a CP you could achieve even the 50k as entry to the XCL is restricted to P and above rated pilots.

5.  You can only be awarded a mug once on breaking through the various levels of achievement (50,100,200, 300, etc)

6.  Detailed records are kept of previous awards, the score and year.

7.  It's quite possible to come into the award system part way up, for example a lucky or talented pilot may have a very successful first year entry into the XCL. That's their starting benchmark.

8.  Finally, if you cease to  be a member of the DHPC, your achievement level is frozen at that point.

The Dodd Grid Challenge

Inspired by the Parlick Grid Challenge, DHPC are proud to present the Dodd Grid Challenge. The concept is simple, take off, and then try to achieve at least one tracklog point in each cylinder, in numerical order. We think most of the cylinders up to about number 12 could just about be achieved with dynamic lift alone, but the rest would need some thermal assistance. Some of the later ones may be tricky....

Cylinders are all 400m except for no.1 at 200m. All cylinders are centred on British national grid squares, so the distance between adjacent centre points is 1km.

The competition will run over each calendar year, with the yearly winner being the pilot scoring the greatest number of cylinders in sequence. In the event of a tie, the leader will be the pilot scoring most recently... so if somebody beats you, have another go and try to do better.

Download the waypoints below (right-click and select "Save target as" or "Save link as"):

Use GPS babelfish to convert formats if required: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/gpsbabel/gpsbabel_convert

By downloading the waypoints pilots acknowledge that the decision to participate in the challenge, take off and fly, and responsibility for judging whether flying conditions are suitable, is entirely their own.

To score, email your tracklog to Turn on JavaScript!

Three Peaks Challenge

The club has a unique challenge: to fly a loop around all of the Yorkshire Three Peaks - Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent.  It's only been successfully completed a few times, although a couple of top pilots have been caught out by a technicality.  If you want to give it a go study the rules carefully. 

Northern Challenge Series

The 2025, Northern Challenge Series (NCS) is now closed. The 2026 season will open on the 1st Feb 2026. This is an informal paragliding competition/pilot development challenge based on pre-defined tasks covering the area of all the local clubs.  Tasks can be attempted at a pilot's convenience and vary between grid challenges, cat's cradles, triangles, and hike and fly routes of varying size and difficulty.  All information and task details can be accessed using the  links below.

For information and guidance, including background, aims and other notes:

There are two elements to the NCS, the MAIN SERIES and the HIKE & FLY SERIES.  Awards are made for both.

www.xcflight.com/northern-challenge-series2025/

For details on the tasks and scoring, including task file downloads for various instruments, uploads for scoring, results tables and explantory notes on the scoring system:

xcmap

The Baildon Sod

Most years a fun event on Baildon Moor called the Baildon Sod is undertaken. It takes the form of a gliding task, in which each competitor attempts to fly as far as he/she can in a straight line or dog leg, to perform a stand-up landing within two glider spans of a predetermined line out from the hill. It first began in 1983.

The coveted prize 'The Baildon Sod' symbolises a turf cut from beneath the boot of the winner at the winning touch-down. Conditions should be nil wind or very light for the best fun to be had. Keep an eye on the website for details.

Dales Site Records

View our current site cross country records.

X Dales

This is run annually in conjunction with the  Dales Fly-in. Details of the current and previous events can be found here.

X Dales '25