The Delegates to the FAI Members gathered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to attend the 109th FAI General Conference organised on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 September 2015 by the Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Association. It was preceded by the 2015 FAI Awards Ceremony on Thursday, where the prestigious FAI and FAI-Breitling Awards were presented to the recipients.

A special parachuting demonstration was held before the start of the Sessions, and the participants had the opportunities to admire the Airbus E-Fan. The electric two-seater aircraft was on display on the quay beside the former cruise ship SS Rotterdam aboard which the Conference took place. Two hot air balloons were inflated, one of them being the promotional balloon of the FAI World Air Games Dubai 2015 where the best air sports athletes will compete in December. It was brought by a Dubai delegation led by H.E. Yousif Al Hammadi, Director of the Games, who came especially to the Conference to update the Delegates on the preparations of the competition.

H.E. Al Hammadi brought the torch of the Games to the Conference and addressed the assembly. He expressed Dubai’s ambition to “turn the challenges of the Games into opportunities” and stated that “Dubai is ready and prepared to host the FAI World Air Games in December this year […]. [They] will be an unforgettable experience for all participants and delegates”.

For the first time, the Sessions of the Conference were preceded by several workshops that allowed attendees to learn and discuss about selected topics. The program included Women in FAI, Anti-Doping and FAI World Air Games Q&As, Organiser Agreement and Bidding Process, IT, Green Environmental Standards, Rules and Regulations, and Cross cultural training.

Sports and Branding Strategy

The Executive Board presented the “FAI 2020” concept which includes a re-view and re-fining of the FAI Brand to continue its development

Projects

Reports on different projects were made during the Conference. They included:

• Organiser Agreement: the development of the new Organiser Agreement is well underway.
• FAI World Air Games Dubai 2015: the challenges are high, but so is everyone’s motivation to make sure this competition will be a great success and a milestone event for air sports. It will be a great opportunity for the Federation to build on this success to further develop media and public friendly multi-sports competitions.
• Marketing and Communication: FAI is now communicating regularly in several languages to report on competitions and activities, to celebrate aeronautic or astronautic record anniversary, and to make announcements. Special efforts were made to increase the promotion of selected events, which included TV production and distribution
• Regional Management System: East & South Asia Regional Vice President Tengku Abdillah from Malaysia reported on the Membership’s situation and on his activities in this part of the world.
• FAI Anti-doping programme: the programme has been successfully continued as planned. A new World Anti-Doping code was implemented on the 1 January 2015 but with no major change for FAI. The Federation is continuously focusing on Therapeutic Use Exemptions and education.
• Membership survey: the research has been carried out over a two year period. Partial results were presented to the Conference. They will allow to adapt the research tools and thus to continue and eventually to finalise the survey to be presented to the 110th FAI General Conference in 2016.
• Multi-sport events: multi-sports events such as The World Games 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland, and the Asian Beach Games will be a perfect playground to showcase our sports.
• Commissions and OSTIV: each Commission President reported on the activities of their sports and field and highlighted the main challenges they are currently facing, as well as their objectives for the future.

New recommended Museums

• Irish Aviation Foundation (IRL)
• Centro Studi Del Volo a Vela Alpino (ITA)
• Museum-Monument Francisco Sarabia (MEX)
• Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum (USA)

New Members

• Fédération Algérienne des Sports Aériens (ALG) – Active Member
• Aeronautical Federation of Kosovo (KOS) – Active Member

Appointment of Companions of Honour

• Max Bishop (Great Britain, left), FAI Secretary from 1993 to 2010. He also held several positions within the FAI Aviation and Space Education Commission including UK Delegate and President. He is the current Vice President of the International World Games Association (IWGA) where the FAI is active with several air sports.
• Bob Clipsham (Canada, right), who fulfilled several roles within FAI including that of Canadian Delegate to FAI and FAI Executive Director, Finance, from 2004 to 2014, and made an exceptional contribution to the FAI and has continuously promoted sport aviation in all its facets in Canada.

Open Forum

Several Delegates came up on stage to share their experience or provide information on various topics. They included:

Bruno Delor, 1st Vice President of the FAI Aeromodelling Commission, presented the new challenges stemming from the activities of the drones.

Gr. Captain Veerayuth Didyasarin presented the project of the establishment of the Air Sports Federation of Asia (AFA) to increase the number of members of air sports of Asia and to form and expand coordination with countries in Asia.

Pilot Sergey Ananov from Russia (right) gave a vivid account of his attempt to circumnavigate the globe on a helicopter which abruptly ended when his helicopter crashed into the sea between Canada and Greenland. He told the Conference how he survived on an ice floe keeping polar bears at bay before being rescued by the Canadian Coast Guard.

Future General Conferences

The host of the 111th FAI General Conference in 2017 will be decided at a later stage.

The next FAI General Conference will take place in from 14 to 15 October 2016 in Bali, Indonesia.

Elections

There were no elections this year, except for the Statutes Working Group and Active Members Representatives of the FAI Air Sport General Commission CASI (France, Germany, Hong Kong, Switzerland, United Kingdom).

The next elections for the FAI Executive Board, including the Presidency, will take place in 2016.

Minutes

The Minutes of the General Conference will be released at the beginning of 2016.