Determining the Winner
The rules shall be simple, such that the average person can understand or explain them easily and will be structured so that the outright winner is determined by their overall, total Carbon Footprint (CF) over the entire race period, together with their performance during the race e.g. elapsed times.
This calculation shall include the following areas:
- Elapsed times from take-off to landing, faster is better on some legs, delta from forecast time is better for some legs.
- Overall race duration
- The carbon footprint associated with electricity used to recharge or otherwise replenish the electrical store of energy onboard the aircraft (excluding Media Comms Battery power), e.g.
- A solar powered aircraft would score a zero CF compared to an aircraft recharged by ground-based diesel generators.
- An aircraft that recharges with a combination of green, renewable energy would score a lower CF than the diesel recharged team.
- Teams may pre-charge batteries in advance of aircraft arrival, however no competitive advantage will be gained, as departure times will be fixed and early arriving aircraft will have to await such time. However, the CF associated with delivery and charging of the pre-charged, swappable batteries will count.
- Ground Support teams may be utilised by each competing team, however where a team has vehicular transport for ground support, the CF associated with such vehicles will count. Teams that use zero emission vehicles for ground support will incur a distinct advantage for example, this maybe an ideal sponsorship opportunity for vehicle manufacturers to showcase their wares.
- Teams may choose creative ways to re-charge their batteries, e.g. erecting solar panel arrays in advance, to recharge swappable batteries. Teams could charge batteries at a central location with renewable power and then transport them to each ALA, however a Carbon Footprint penalty would be calculated and applied.
- Teams may request the assistance of local towns to become involved, perhaps charging batteries with human power, or by other such creative means.