FAI Microlight and Paramotor Commission 2014 Annual Meeting

The CIMA 2014 plenary took place this weekend in Lausanne, SUI. It started on Thursday 4 December with the separate microlight and paramotor sub-committee meetings in the Maison du Sport International, home of the FAI office, and continued through Friday and Saturday. Approximately 40 people attended of which 18 were voting delegates. We welcomed among others George CHERNG from Chinese Taipei and thanked him for making the long journey.

Championships

There were several 2014 CAT1 and other major championships to report on as well as many in the near future. Reports included:

• 14th FAI World Microlight Championships and 8th FAI World Paramotor Championships, Hungary
• 1st FAI European Paramotor Slalom Championships, France
• 2014 Asian Beach Games, Thailand

Discussions on future championships included:

• 2015 - 2nd FAI World Paramotor Slalom Championships, Poland
  Planning was going well; CIMA President Richard MEREDITH-HARDY signed the Organiser Agreement and CIMA is looking forward to a successful championship.
• 2015 - 13th FAI European Microlight Championships, Poland
  Unfortunately no representatives of the championship were present and the information made available was lacking in detail. Delegates appointed CIMA President of Honour Tormod VEIBY (NOR) as monitor and asked him to work with the CIMA Bureau members to obtain the information needed.
• 2015 - 6th FAI European Paramotor Championships, Romania
  The ROU delegate gave a presentation and had uploaded the Local Regulations and Task Catalogue onto the CIMA WIKI. These were approved and the Organiser Agreement was signed during the meeting.
• 2015 - 2nd FAI Asia-Oceania Paramotor Championships, Malaysia
  MAS Delegate Rohaizi HUSSIN gave a presentation after which the bid was approved unanimously. Nayot KURIKITKOSEN (THA) was appointed Monitor to oversee preparations.
• FAI World Air Games 2015, Dubai, UAE
  FAI staff members and CIMA Liaison Officers had just returned from a planning meeting in Dubai. Richard MEREDITH-HARDY (Paramotors) and Rob GRIMWOOD (GBR, Microlights) were selected to work closely with the FAI in planning the CIMA events in cooperation with the Local Organisers. Dubai foresee a spectacular event in December 2015 and we expect both microlighting and paramotoring to benefit greatly from the professional media coverage to produce really breath-taking images of our sports.

Looking further ahead, GBR were represented by three members of the bid team for the combined 2016 FAI World Microlight and Paramotor Championships in London, England.  Delegates voted unanimously for the championship after other bid candidates withdrew their bids.

Portugal signalled their intention to bid formally at the 2015 CIMA meeting for the 2016 European Paramotor Slalom Championships.

Still further ahead, Paramotors have been included in the list of air sports for the IWGA World Games in 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland. Second to the Olympic Games, the IWGA World Games is a huge multi-sport event and will surely bring great media interest to our sport.

Paramotors may well be part of other major multi-sport events in the future, including the 2016 Asian Beach Games (Vietnam), the 2017 SportAccord World Urban Games (TBC), the 2018 Asian Games (Indonesia), the 6th Asian Beach Games (2018, India) and perhaps even the 1st World Beach Games (2018, TBC). Busy times, but it’s no surprise that paramotors are being considered as they represent probably the best FAI sport for event organisers – fast-paced, able to re-locate around the world, can fly in cities, beaches, over water or town squares and delivers adrenalin-packed high quality action for audiences.

Paramotor World League Cup

The league received more applications from event organisers to include their championships in the WLC than ever before. The winning certificates were awarded during the meeting:

Individual

1. Alexandre MATEOS (FRA)
2. Piotr FICEK (POL)
3. Kamil MANKOWSKI (POL)

Team

1. France
2. Poland
3. Thailand

Transport of batteries and engines

We welcomed Mr. Dave BRENNAN of IATA (International Air Transport Association). Dave works with the transport of dangerous goods and gave advice on how best to transport lithium batteries and also internal combustion engines without being turned away at the check-in desk. More information will follow in a special CIMA briefing paper.

Awards

The Ann Welch Diplomas were awarded to Alexis ANASTASIOU and Petros PRINTEZIS (both GRE) for their microlight altitude record of 7608m and to Karen SKINNER (ESP) for her paramotor world altitude record of 6250m.

A new award, the Grzegorz Krzyzanowski Trophy, was added to the CIMA list of awards. This was created in memory of Grzegorz who won the first ever FAI Paramotor Slalom Championship in 2013 but sadly died in 2014. The trophy will be given each year to the winner of the slalom championship.

Elections and administration

The CIMA meeting also dealt with a number of administrative issues, including changes to the Section 10 rules and elections. The CIMA Bureau for 2015 includes:

President; Richard MEREDITH-HARDY (GBR)
1VP: Wolfgang LINTL (GER)
2VP: Rob HUGHES (GBR)
Treasurer: Rohaizi HUSSIN (MAS)
Secretary: Rob HUGHES (GBR)

The CIMA Minutes will contain more detail on the topics mentioned here and will be published soon.

The 2015 meeting will take place on 5-7 November 2015 in Lausanne, SUI. We’ll see you there!

Rob Hughes
CIMA 2VP and Secretary

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