Aviation and Space Anniversaries to Celebrate in 2016

FAI will continue to celebrate aviation and space anniversaries in 2016, with various publications and posts in the social media.

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CIAM Flyer (6-2015) - Night of Design

Anyone building a model aeroplane usually does this in isolation, i.e. alone and in their own workshop. This means that exchanges of experience directly on the object and encouragement from role models are rare.

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Gliding pilot Sebastian Kawa named Athlete of the Month by IWGA

The International World Games Association (IWGA) announced the nomination of Polish pilot Sebastian Kawa as the Athlete of the Month for December 2015. 

Kawa has just won the Gliding event of the FAI World Air Games Dubai 2015 and has been keeping himself at the top of Gliding competitions for more than a decade. 

FAI congratulates him on this great news.

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First sailplane flight over Dubai

On 7 December 2015 an historic first flight of a sailplane over the skyline of Dubai was performed. The pilots were Klaus Ohlmann and Tilo Holighaus.

Here is Klaus's story of that flight.

After my presentation at the end of the Aeromedical congress, I paid a visit to our gliding friends in the Desert Drop Zone, where they were engaged in the "Gliding Match Race" event. Afterwards, we joined the German team for dinner in their hotel.

As part of the effort to demonstrate our sport in Dubai, Schempp-Hirth had brought a brand new Arcus M , the latest doubleseater of their glider production. Tilo Holighaus proposed to me the idea of making some VIP-Flights with the Arcus. It was his brother Ralf who innocently posed the question of whether the famous skyscrapers of Dubai could produce lift, with an onshore breeze from the Gulf.

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Flying high: final FAI World Air Games medals awarded

Twelve sets of medals were awarded at the Closing Ceremony of the FAI World Air Games in Dubai, as the sun set on the two-week event celebrating air sports from around the world.

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Medals galore! FAI World Air Games champions crowned

Dozens of medals were presented at the first of two ceremonies taking place at the Palm Dropzone today (December 12).

Mounting the podium this time; microlight and gyrocopter pilots, formation parachutists and speed skydivers.

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Marco Wiederkehr flies to Gold at 533km/h

Marco Wiederkehr is officially the world’s fastest skydiver. He won the Speed Skydiving event here at the FAI World Air Games and set a new world record while doing it.

“I set the new world record on my first jump,” he said after the competition was over. “I hit 533km/h. That’s 140 metres a second, or a kilometre in 6.5 seconds.”

He added: “There are only six people in the world who have gone faster than 500km/h in speed skydiving and they are all here.”

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Standing ovation for new Hot Air Ballooning champion

David Strasmann of Germany was presented with a Gold medal last night (December 11) for winning the FAI World Air Games Hot Air Ballooning competition.

A crowd of about 300 spectators and supporters cheered wildly and gave the winner a standing ovation as he accepted his medal.

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Formation skydiving and the 90-minute turnaround

Briton Simon Guest only has 90 minutes. That's the turnaround time between jumps in the FAI World Air Games 4-way Formation Skydiving competition.

Along with teammates Mike Hayes, Pete Mather and Ady King, they have just completed one of ten 35-second runs in which they managed 18 points.

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All rise for Russian Rotorcraft champs

“Russia! Russia!” rang out across the Skydive Dubai Palm Dropzone last night (December 11), as Russian helicopter pilots Alexander Zhuperin and Nikolay Burov stepped up for their Rotorcraft gold medals.

The new FAI World Air Games champions were joined on the podium by silver medallists Michal and Marcin Szamborski from Poland, and Austrians Thomas Morgenstern and Stefan Seer, there to claim bronze.

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