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INTERNATIONAL GLIDING COMMISSION - I.G.C.Meeting in Marly-Le-Roi, France, from 14 to 16 March, 1996The annual plenary meeting of the FAI International Gliding Commission (IGC) in Marly-le-Roi, near Paris was attended by 55 delegates and observers from 27 countries. The meeting welcomed the announcement that the FAI is now on the internet and resolved to make full use of this new medium for the distribution of gliding information. The URL of the FAI is: http://www.fai.org and the IGC "home page" is: http://www.fai.org/gliding/ A central theme of this meeting, as of the previous one, was the use of flight recorders based on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) for flight documentation purposes. This new technology has exciting possibilities, not only for registering record and badge flights without the use of photography but also for making gliding competitions more interesting for the general public. At the forthcoming European Gliding Championships in Räyskälä, Finland, a first test will be made of a system which displays the positions of the leading pilots on a screen as they race over a course of hundreds of kilometres. Keeping pace with these technological developments has unfortunately resulted in an undesirable inflation in the gliding rules laid down in Section 3 of the FAI "Sporting Code". The meeting therefore resolved that the next major revision will aim at simplification and reduction in volume of these rules. The President of the "European Gliding Union" (EGU), Fransois van Haaf, attended the meeting as an invited guest and reported on the work of his organisation in representing the gliding movement in the discussion with various European authorities over "harmonisation" of licensing regulations. The IGC is grateful for the work of the EGU, which relieves us from air space and regulatory matters and allows us to concentrate on sporting aspects. The dates and venues of the following international sporting events were fixed at this or previous meetings:
A very important event for all FAI air sports is the First World Air Games (WAG), which will take place in Turkey in September, 1997. After hearing and discussing the reports of Taner Erdem, the Turkish IGC delegate, Srecko Medven, the FAI WAG air sports co-ordinator, Bülent Özen, the managing director of the WAG, Fred Weinholtz, the IGC event expert, and Piero Morelli, Chairman of the World Class Glider management group, the IGC took the important step of declaring the WAG gliding event to be the first world championships in the World Class. The meeting decided to award the Lilienthal Medal to Tor Johannessen of Norway, long-standing member of the IGC Bureau and Chairman of the rules subcommittee. The Pelagia Majewska Medal will be awarded to Adele M. Orsi of Italy. During the meeting, the Polish delegate, Waldemar Ratajczek, presented the IGC Secretary, Fred Weinholtz, the "Czeslaw Tanski Memorial Medal", in recognition of his services to Polish gliding. A report on the Barron Hilton Cup - the world's biggest gliding competition, open to pilots fly anywhere in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand - was read by the President on behalf of Annette Reichmann. The invitation to the next two-year period (1996/97) was distributed to the delegates. The IGC President, Peter Ryder (Germany), the First Vice President, Tor Johannessen (Norway), the Vice Presidents Åke Pettersson (Sweden) and Tapio Savolainen (Finland), and the Secretary, Fred Weinholtz, were re-elected for a further term of office. Dick Bradley (South Africa), Patrick Stoufs (Belgium) and Roger Woods (Australia) were newly elected as Vice Presidents. The next full IGC meeting will be held from 13 - 15 March, 1997, in Brussels. There will be a European meeting on 26 October, 1996, in Marly-le-Roi. 4/4/96 |
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