The Online Contest is a web based soaring contest open to all Canadian pilots. It is hosted by a team of volunteers through the German magazine Aerokurier. The contest is an annual event, starting in early October each year, and every country has its own contest within the overall scheme. 

SAC provides financial support to the Aerokurier "Online Contest" a.k.a. "The OLC".

Jorg Stieber represents SAC and its members to the OLC team in Germany.

Tony Firmin is Canada's technical representative and can help you with getting your flights claimed properly. 

Simply put, Canadian soaring pilots can claim the GPS log of their flight in the form of a .igc ( or IGC) file to a web site which scores the flight for distance and points and then presents all flights arranged as National and Regional contests. Participating pilots can then review their accomplishments to other pilots in their own region, their own country or the world. "Champions" are determined based on their 6 best flights as compared to other pilots in their region and country.  

Now, why is it 'fun'?

Before the OLC existed, pilots would go off, have a great flight, and then they kept it pretty much to themselves. Sure, we would find out that so-and-so did a 500K triangle, or another pilot as able to do a long flight on a blue day, but, apart from 'hangar flying' discussions we never knew exactly what was accomplished. And if you do not know what is possible, you may not try that same flight yourself.

Today we have access to thousands of flight logs from all over the world. We can now relive these flights and see what is possible, or not possible.

At some point many pilots become 'competitive', not in the official "let's go to the Nationals" kind of competitive, they may just feel they want to know how their techniques and decisions compared to others on the same day in the same area. The OLC is the perfect solution for this pilot, since he or she can vicariously compete against fellow club members or other clubs on any day of the year.

Do you know what 'lake effect' is? If not, you can certainly see the effects in a flight along the north shore of Lake Erie.

How much fun is ridge flying? Check out a few long flights from Mifflin PA or Ridge Soaring PA, or New Jersey!

Lots of fun to be had here! 'Competing' or viewing, your choice.

To view an individual flight, click on the blue i-nfo button at far right on each flight display line, then you can see the flight path and altitude trace, click on the Google Maps text to see the track over a satellite image of the area. There are many options you can click on to see more details, experiment!