Paris Air Show 2023

Why is the French Microlight Federation at the Paris Air Show?

The Paris Air Show, held from Monday 19 to Sunday 25 June, is essentially (and increasingly so over time) a trade show for "big" civil and military aviation. The tragic circumstances of the war are boosting the military market. Commercial civil aviation now lives its growth in a kind of guilt that stakes everything on forced decarbonisation. What are microlights, intended mainly for leisure and sport, doing in this world?

For several years the Federation has been present on the public days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) within the village of the National Council of Aeronautical and Sporting Federations (CNFAS) with the other "light aviation" activities (aeroplanes, gliders, model aircraft, balloons, free flight, parachuting, helicopters, amateur building). Aviation must never forget its origins, made up of pioneers, sportsmen and inventors who incubated all of aviation. Since the early 80s, microlighting has stayed faithful to this original matrix by promoting innovation, lightness and simplicity.

Microlighting is innovation. The world's first electric aircraft were born within the microlight regulations, which are a driver of innovation. The most widespread electric aeroplane is in fact the certified version of a microlight. The first hydrogen aircraft flew as microlights (crossing the Channel), and the main vectors of decarbonisation (turbine, SAF, hydrogen…) are microlights. On its stand the Federation presents the Elektra Solar, a German microlight with a two-hour endurance. It also shows the full variety of microlight classes: paramotor, gyroplane and weight-shift, with the world's leading manufacturer of weight-shift microlights (Air Création).

Microlighting is lightness. From the start, microlighting has staked everything on an elementary physical principle: lightness, the "holy grail" of aviation, its permanent quest. The secret of sobriety in aviation begins with lightness, which reduces the energy required and minimises risk.

Finally, microlighting is simplicity. It is the most obvious expression of the wish to fly with safe, simple, accessible machines with low consumption. An aviation of "daisies" scattered across small airfields spread over the country, which, thanks to its regulatory framework, shows the most promising forms of tomorrow's aviation.

In the demands of the present day, microlighting is the most sober but also the most fun way (we need that too) to practise powered flight for sport and leisure! It is so that a very wide public realises this, beyond the common prejudices, that we are present at the Paris Air Show.

Sébastien Perrot
President of the French Microlight Federation

Elektra Solar

Paris Air Show