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The 'Fédération Aéronautique Internationale' (FAI) is a standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. This includes man-carrying vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned vehicles (such as model aircraft and UAVs). It is also the international governing body for air sports. It was founded in 1905.

Contents

Air sports

Records

Classes

Some of the records

Class A: Free balloons

Class C: Aeroplanes

Class D: Gliders & Motorgliders

Class R: Microlights

See also

External link

Air sports

The FAI is the international governing body for the following air sports:

★ Aerobatics

★ Aeromodelling

★ Astronautical Records

★ Ballooning

★ General aviation

★ Gliding

★ Hang gliding

★ Microlighting

★ Parachuting

★ Paragliding

★ Rotorcraft
FAI oversees international competitions in these air sports categories at world and continental levels, and also organizes the World Air Games.

Records

Among the FAI's responsibilities are the verification of record-breaking flights. For a flight to be registered as a "World's Record," it has to comply with the FAI's strict rules, which include a proviso that the record must exceed the previous record by a certain percentage. Since the late 1930s, military aircraft have dominated some classes of record for powered aircraft such as speed, distance, payload, and height, though other classes are regularly claimed by civilians.
Some records are claimed by countries as their own, even though their achievements fail to meet FAI standards. These claims are not typically granted the status of official records. For example, Yuri Gagarin earned recognition for the first manned spaceflight, despite failing to meet FAI requirements. The FAI initially did not recognize the achievement because he did not land in his Vostok spacecraft, but later it recognized that Gagarin was the first human to fly into space. The FAI then established "The Yuri A. Gagarin Gold Medal", which has been awarded since 1968. [1]

Classes

The following types of craft have records:

★ Class A Free Balloons

★ Class B Airships

★ Class C Aeroplanes

★ Class D Gliders & Motorgliders

★ Class E Rotorcraft

★ Class F Model Aircraft

★ Class G Parachuting

★ Class H Vertical Take-off and Landing Aeroplanes

★ Class I Manpowered aircraft

★ Class K Spacecraft

★ Class M Tilt-Wing/Tilt Engine Aircraft

★ Class N Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) Aeroplanes

★ Class O Hang Gliding & Paragliding

★ Class P Aerospacecraft

★ Class R Microlight

★ Class S Space Models

★ Class U Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Some of the records

Class A: Free balloons

Date	Measurement	Person	Aircraft	Type
March 21, 1999	40,814 km	Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones	Breitling Orbiter	Distance
May 4, 1961	34,668 m	Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather	Winzen	Absolute altitude

Class C: Aeroplanes

Date	Measurement	Person	Aircraft	Type
February 11, 2006	41,467.53 km	Steve Fossett	Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer	Flight distance record unrefuelled
July 28, 1976	3,529.56 km/h	Eldon Joersz	SR-71	Flight airspeed record
August 31, 1977	37,650 m	Alexandr Fedotov	MiG E-266M	Flight altitude record
October 22, 1938	17,083 m	Mario Pezzi	Caproni 161 bis	Flight altitude record Piston engine without payload

Class D: Gliders & Motorgliders

Date	Measurement	Person	Aircraft	Type
August 30, 2006	15,453 m	Steve Fossett and Einar Enevoldson	Glaser-Dirks DG-505M (modified)	Gliding Altitude
January 21, 2003	3,008.8 km	Klaus Ohlmann and Gerhard Marzinzik	Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-4	Gliding Distance

Class R: Microlights

Date	Measurement	Person	Aircraft	Type	Link
February 14, 2002	187 km/h	Julian Harris and Bob Sharp	Jabiru UL	3 axis flight airspeed record	[2]

See also

External link

★ Official FAI website