Newsletter – April 2026
The Launch | April 2026
Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada (HPAC)
Insurance Renewal – New Landowner/Site Insurance Certificates
With springtime approaching, it’s time to ensure your flying paperwork is in order. If you apply for a Site Insurance Certificate on behalf of a landowner, resort or city/district each year, it’s time to update to a 2026 certificate.
For more information, please review the FAQs on our Insurance page, and you can view the updated Insurance Binder linked there.
2026 AGM
The 2026 AGM is coming up at the end of April. Voting will be open for 7 days starting first thing on Monday April 27 and closing at midnight on Sunday May 3rd.
Ensure your membership is current if you’d like to vote! Watch your inboxes for more info.
Attention Senior Instructors
Each year instructors contact the office asking who is holding recertification courses.
Please email the office if you plan to put one on this year, and also if you are open to traveling to other areas across the country that may have a shortage of senior instructors (HG and/or PG, English and/or French speaking).
We post notices of Instructor/Tandem courses on our Facebook page as we receive them as well as here in the newsletter.
Paraglide Canada has three scheduled Instructor courses for this spring: April 3, 24 and May 15th. More information here:
https://www.paraglidecanada.com/collections/courses/products/instructor-tandem-course-3-day
Logging Flights
The West Coast Soaring Club hosted an “XC in the Valley” event in Chilliwack, BC recently to help pilots understand local routes and air spaces as the XC season approaches. One thing mentioned was how beneficial it was that everyone post their flights on XContest. Peter Spear – who stays in contact with Transport Canada about our airspace and flying areas – says he can show them a heat map with our most popular routes using these posted flights. That helps TC see the areas we use most (or even unique flights where they wouldn’t expect to see us!) and helps inform future decisions about local flying areas with documented data. We encourage pilots across the country to post all their flights to help show Transport Canada that we are active and where we want to keep our flight paths open for years to come.
Create an account or log your flights here: https://www.xcontest.org/canada/en/
And speaking of logging flights…
Logbooks
Instructors and students can order the Grey “Training” books (PG or HG) and for signed off pilots who prefer a paper log book to track and reflect on their flights, the Red books are in stock again. Red pilot log books are the same for PG and HG.
Order yours here! Price includes shipping: https://www.hpac.ca/training-logbook/
FAI Sporting License
HPAC/ACVL is pleased to announce that all pilots planning to compete this year can apply for an FAI sporting licence at no cost for 2026! If successful, this program will continue on into the future. Competition is an important part of our sport that helps pilots develop their skills and is a great way to showcase our sport to increase our numbers across the country..
Who needs an FAI Sporting Licence?
FAI Sporting Licences are required for any sanctioned FAI Cat 2 competition, including the 2026 Canadian Paragliding Nationals and 2 paragliding competitions in Chelan, Washington this summer. The 2026 Canadian Hang gliding Nationals are pending FAI approval as well.
The more pilots with their licences, the more points the competition is worth. Higher ranked pilots bring more points with them too. More info on the FAI pilot ranking system is here:
https://fai.org/sites/default/files/civl/documents/sporting_code_s7_e_-_wprs_2025.pdf
Pilots must apply each calendar year for this licence. Applications are still processed by the Aeroclub of Canada which is liaison to the FAI for all airsports in Canada.
Link to the application is here:
https://pq3ivecn4rb.typeform.com/to/EhU0AhCT
Link to FAI Cat2 events
Safety
safety@hpac.ca
The annual safety report will be available at our online AGM to read, and a link will be provided in the next newsletter.
Please note – in order to provide accident reports and insights, the safety committee needs pilots to submit reports, and also volunteers to put the reports together!
We are seeing pilots discussing accidents on local chat groups that don’t make it to the safety committee. Please use the following link to report. You can also submit accidents or incidents that have happened in prior years. That data can still be used to help make our sport safer for us all!
If you have experience instructing or analyzing safety reports in general (like through a workplace safety committee) and would like to contribute to the work of the safety committee, please contact us at the email above or the safety committee chair directly (Bertrand Stoffel, bstoffel@hpac.ca).
Typeform link English: https://pq3ivecn4rb.typeform.com/to/ZzIBaNLP
Typeform link French: https://pq3ivecn4rb.typeform.com/to/eeqpY9V8
Competition
International Competitions
Email your links to admin@hpac.ca if you are attending an event so our members can follow along and cheer you on!
Upcoming Canadian Competitions:
July 3-July 9, 2026 PG Nationals, Golden BC ( https://cpgro.org/upcomingevents?event=golden-2026 )
July 18-25, 2026 – HG Nationals, Golden BC ( https://civlcomps.org/event/canadian-hang-gliding-national-championship )
July 11-16, 2026 – 50th Anniversary of Lumby Air Force, Lumby BC
For more info just contact randy@rauck.ca