The Online Contest (https://www.onlinecontest.org) otherwise known as the OLC is a very popular world wide contest in which many pilots from the WGC participate. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the OLC, the Soaring Association of Canada has information on what the OLC is and why you might wish to participate in the contest. This information is located at https://www.sac.ca/index.php/en/competition/olc-en .

The FLARM units in the club's PW-6s and the PW-5 are also flight recorders and they create flight traces in the igc file format which is the required format for the OLC. The FLARM units either have a USB stick interface or an microSD card interface. The PW-5 and one of the PW-6s have a microSD card interface. The other PW-6 has a USB stick interface. We have an microSD card and USB stick in the office in the training center. The last time that I checked the microSD card and USB stick were both in a small clear plastic box on the set of shelves on the west wall near where the hand held radios are charged.

In order to participate in the OLC, you must have an account on the OLC site. To create an OLC account, select the “Gliding” tab, then click on the “Competitor” drop down list and then select “Contest Registration”. Fill in the required information. Fields having an asterisk are the required fields. Once you have set up your account, you will be able to upload flights to your account and participate in the contest.

1. Open up the canopy on the glider and turn off the master power switch.
2. Insert the microSD card or USB stick into the FLARM unit. There is an extender cable on at least one of the FLARM units to make it easier to insert the device as the slots for the microSD card and USB stick are behind the instrument panels.
3. Turn on the master power switch. The flarm unit will power up and its lights will all blink while the flight data files are being transferred to the device.
4. Once the transfer is complete, turn off the power and remove the microSD card or USB stick. The download will have finished once the FLARM unit is in its normal powered up mode.

The microSD card can be plugged into any computer/device which has an SD card reader. You may have to use an SD card adapter which the club also has. The club computer has both an external SD card reader and USB stick slots.

The files on the FLARM unit are numbered for each day. Find the files that were created on the correct date and find the file(s) for your flight(s). If there were 4 flights for the day, there should be 4 files for the day (e.g. 08TXA6W1.IGC, 08TXA6W2.IGC, 08TXA6W3.IGC & 08TXA6W4.IGC). Check the flight sheets to determine which flight(s) you took. If you flew first then 08TXA6W1.IGC should be your file. If you flew last (4th) then 08TXA6W4.IGC should be your file.

After you have uploaded your flight, please return the microSD card or USB stick to its case on the shelving unit in the office.

To upload your flight(s), go to the OLC website, choose the “Gliding” tab, then select “Claim Flight” and then follow the prompts. It may take several minutes before your flight gets scored depending upon how busy the server is. You have to upload your flight within something like 2 days of your flight. After that, you can't upload the flight.

NB: It appears that the OLC will be removing the ability to claim flights without logging onto the website. There is a message on the “Claim Flight” page which states:

“You can currently still report your flight by providing your name and date of birth. This method will be discontinued soon. Therefore, it is better to use the flight claim after successful login.”

Claiming flights without logging onto the site is/was the method that many members had been using to upload their flights and the flights of other pilots. You will still be able to claim flights for others but you must be logged in to do so and the person for whom you are claiming a flight must have explicitly listed you as a Trusted Competitor in their settings. Section 2.3 of the OLC's FAQ states the following about Trusted competitors:

Trusted competitor - responsibilities and advantages

A trusted competitor is an OLC contestant who may declare, edit or cancel other competitors’ flights. To add a trusted competitor please click “my settings“ in the menu below your user name, write your buddies name into your participant registration form (see “trusted competitors”), click “add” and finally hit the “save” button. You may also become a trusted competitor for another OLC-pilot yourself.

The OLC is a world wide contest with many competitors. There can be hundreds of flights on a given day. The default setting on the OLC is to show all flights for all of the competitors in the world. This can make it difficult to find your own particular flight. Luckily, the OLC website provides you with a set of filters that can winnow the list down.

Here is how I look for flights done at Starbuck on a given day:

1. Go to the Online Contest website.
2. Select the “Gliding” tab.
3. Go to the “Worldwide” drop down menu near the upper left hand side of the computer monitor* and select “North America” then “Canada” then “SK/MB”.
4. Go to the “OLC-Scoring” drop down menu and select “Daily Score”. This will take you to the most recent day's flights. If the flight that you were interested in was on another day, then use the date widget near the upper left of the computer monitor* and then select the correct date.

_{* I do not know the screen locations on a mobile device.}

You will be presented with a list of flights that occurred in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on the date that you selected. To see the details for a given flight, select the “i” to the far right of the flight information.

Another thing you may wish to do is see pilot rankings. Using the same filters as above, go to the “OLC-Scoring” drop down menu and select “OLC-Plus Champion”. This will give you a ranked list of pilots in the SK/MB contest. A pilot's best 6 flights in the region are used for ranking purposes.

One thing to keep in mind is that the rankings are dependent on what filters you use. For example, if you look at Jay's ranking using the SK/MB filter, you will notice that he only has 1 ranked flight as of 2022/07/07. If you change the filter to be “all Canada”, you will notice that Jay has 6 ranked flights and lots of points due to his flights in another region. If you are a pilot who flies in other regions, you need to be aware of the effects of the filters with respect to your rankings in a given region.

There is a wealth of data on the OLC site and many different ways you can access the information. Have fun determining which way works best for you!