The New Zealand Paragliding Open - last held in the region in 2018 - features 70 paragliders, including about 18 from overseas, which primarily will launch from a take-off site at Treble Cone and aim to fly set courses taking them all over the district.
Competitors include Germany's Julia Jauss, ranked 428th in the world for women, her countryman Michael Dreher, ranked 349th, Australian Phillip Mansell, ranked 218th, and Queenstown's Louis Tapper, ranked 225th.
Organiser Tim Brown, of the Southern Hang Gliding and Paragliding Club, said the pilots would be challenged to fly different courses each day, taking them into the mountains and around valleys, racing to turn points set on their GPS unit or flight instrument.
They would then aim to land at designated "goals" such as Wānaka's Pembroke Park, in Glendhu Bay, and Hawea.
Scores would be tabulated at the end of the competition and submitted to Switzerland's Federation Aeroanautique Internationale, the world governing body for air sports, to go towards world rankings.
While competition organisers had done their best to notify local farmers and landowners pilots might "overfly" their properties, it was not possible to attend to each landowner, Brown said.
It was entirely possible pilots might have to make an unscheduled landing or two.
"Often ... the best-laid plans of getting to goal don't happen due to changing weather and pilot skill," Brown said.
He also encouraged passing motorists to help pilots out if they saw them stuck on the side of the road by giving them a lift.
The first competition day, weather dependent, would be Sunday.
