Relay races

Will take place on the 1 and 2 Feb. Please check rules on the website for information. There is a deeply discounted rate on this event of only 99E per team.

The Relay Races are a speed discipline that involves a team of four people flying individually one after the other against the clock. The time of all four individuals is added together to find the team score. The fastest team over 6 rounds will be the winner.

A draw is held before the competition, to determine the movements the fliers need to make, each flier is nominated to fly one of the 4 sequences. Each person on the team can fly only one of the routines.

The fliers must perform 4 obligatory movements in each round, and they must do this in the shortest possible time and without accruing penalties.

The time starts when one of the team presses a button at the rear of the flight chamber. This is the signal for flier 1 to enter the chamber and also starts the clock. When flier 1 exits the chamber, they must press the same button at the rear of the chamber to signal the start of the round for flier 2. This sequence continues for flier 3 and 4, until flier 4 leaves the chamber and presses the button at the rear of the chamber to stop the clock and show the accumulated time of the 4 fliers.

There are two types of penalties, the BUST and the SKIP. A team commits a BUST when it does not perform one of the mandatory movements correctly, or when they cross the BUST line when the movement performed is not allowed, or when they perform any of the movements through any of the quadrants incorrectly.

A bust is also committed if one of the fliers enters the chamber before the button is pushed to signal the start of their entry.

A horn sounds when there is a BUST, and the blue and green LED lines will turn red. This results in a penalty of 3 extra seconds in the team’s final total time. In the case of an entry bust, the team will incur a 5 second penalty.

A SKIP is when any of the mandatory movements that need to be performed are left out of the routine. If flier 2 enters the chamber before flier 1 has passed the yellow mark in the centre of the chamber on the changeover from flier 1 to flier 2. A SKIP incurs a penalty of 20 seconds.