The Aero Club of France, founder member of FAI, celebrates its 100th birthday in October. The FAI General Conference, which takes place in Toulouse next week is just one of the many events organised to celebrate this landmark anniversary.

The Champs Elysées in Paris have been transformed into a giant outdoor aviation museum until 27 September, with some 6O aircraft of all generations in the last 100 years lining the boulevard. The aircraft were floated on barges at night down the River Seine and off-loaded by crane - a major logistical exercise.

Sadly, a centrepiece of the celebrations, the departure of the Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon race from the Tuileries Gardens had to be cancelled because of bad weather.

FAI's congratulations go to Gérard Feldzer, President of the Aero Club of France and his team for putting on a magnificant public display of aviation and air sports.

After a very successful event on the lakeside at Neuchâtel in Switzerland, the FAI World Grand Prix of Aerobatics has moved to China for a 2 month series of events. Many thousands of members of the Chinese public will be introduced to this exciting sport for the first time and have an opportunity to see the world's top pilots in action. The latest leg, at NANJING (19-20 September), was won by Peter BESENYEI (Hungary) followed closely by Nikolay TIMOFEEV and Viktor TCHMAL (Russia). The same names occur at the top of the general ranking, except that Dominique ROLAND (France) is in third place, ahead of Jurgis KAIRYS (Lithuania) and Victor Tchmal.

The results of FAI Championships have been separately reported. One result of special interest is the Aeromodelling F3A Radio Controlled European Championship Team result from Pesaro, Italy. In first plmace, ahead of France, Germany , Italy and Austria, is a small country rarely seen amongst the FAI medalists: Liechtenstein. Even more surprising is that all the Liechtenstein Gold Medal team members share the same name: Wolfgang, Roland and Norbert MATT. A real family affair!

Negotiations are currently under way in Madrid between FAI and the Spanish organisers of the 2001 World Air Games to finalise an agreement, to be signed in Toulouse next week by FAI President Ness and the Spanish organisers, including Sports Minister Nunez.

FAI Secretary General Max Bishop has been invited to speak to the Congress of the General Association of International Sporting Federations (GAISF) in October on how air sports can help educate people towards good citizenship.

• 30 - 31 October FAI Microlight Commission Meeting (CIMA), Paris
• 05 - 8 November FAI Aerobatics Commission Meeting (CIVA), Budapest
• 12 - 14 November FAI General Aviation Commission Meeting (GAC), Paris
• 26 - 27 November FAI Aeromodelling (CIAM) Bureau Meeting, Paris

The latest World Pilot Ranking Scheme has just been issued for hang gliding, and paragliding pilots.

In the hang gliding rankings the new competitions included are the Women's World Championships and the Canadian round of the World Hang Gliding Series, bringing another 29 hang gliding pilots (total 479) into the World Pilot Ranking Scheme. There has been no change in the top 10. Amongst the females Marie-Jo Rufat now 29th overall, leads from Francoise Mocellin (38th), Natalia Khamlova (54th), Monique Werner (58th), Nikki Hamilton (80th), Rosi Brams (88th) and Kari Castle (92nd).

The latest paragliding ranking includes results from the British, Spanish and Slovenian Open competitions, with an additional 99 paragliding pilots joining the World Pilot Ranking Scheme (total 491) Again there is no change in the top 10 rankings with Jimmy Pacher (670) still in the lead, however Bruce Goldsmith has added a few points to his score after his win at the British Open.

There have not been any competitions in Class 2 so the rankings remain as published last month.

For this latest ranking there are no competitions over 18 months old which have been deleted.

There are a few competitions whose results have not been received and are therefore not yet included:

• - Norwegian Open (PG) .....no results received
• - North American Summer Champs (PG) .... no results received
• - Portuguese Open (PG)....no results received

Full information and ranking lists can be found on the CIVL website http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/ and the rankings only on the British League website http://www.theleague.force9.co.uk

The rankings are already available on the British League website. Due to holidays they will be posted to the CIVL website week beginning 14th September

To be added to the CIVL World Pilot Ranking Scheme e-mail list please contact Sarah Fenwick, CIVL PR Co-ordinator, e-mail cloud10@zetnet.co.uk or tel/fax +44 1983 523003