Nostalgia for « the good old days » is a well known disease of those who are no longer in the first flush of youth. « I remember when everyone was up at 6 in the morning to drag the aircraft out of the hangar…when thermals were really thermals…when champions were really champions…. »

No doubt some things were better « then ». But many were a lot worse, and we would do well to remind ourselves of this from time to time. To take gliding as an example, was it really such a wonderful state of affairs to have to spend hours rigging the glider, at best for a flight lasting a few seconds, at worst only for the honour of pulling on a piece of rubberised rope to get a fellow club member airborne. No doubt the camaraderie was much better then. But let’s not forget that the flying was infinitely less varied than what is on offer now.

Just consider some of the latest gliding and hang gliding/paragliding  record claims to arrive in the FAI Office in July 2001 (all claims are subject to homologation):

It seems that Bostjan Pristavec (Slovenia) has flown an ultralight glider (Albastar Apis), which must have a minimum take-off mass not exceeding 220kg, over a total distance of 671 km. Pretty extraordinary, when you consider that only a few years ago many top pilots in the unrestricted Open Class of gliders would have been extremely proud to fly that far.

But we hardly had time to recover from our surprise at that performance when a claim arrived from Manfred Ruhmer (Austria) for a flight on a weight-shift controlled Icaro 2000 hang glider of 695 km.  Yes,  over 400 miles dangling under a fabric wing steering by weight-shift.

It is quite clear that technological advances have contributed enormously to making such flights possible. But that’s only one part of the story. Let us not forget the pilots. Is it just possible that they might be more highly trained, more committed, more talented, with a better understanding of meteorology….in short, better than their predecessors in the « good old days » ?

Surely not….but it’s a worrying thought for the nostalgia industry !

Max Bishop Secretary General FAI