Roll on 2021! Microlighting more than ever!

Season 202022 December 20213 min read

We shall not miss the year 2020, and even though uncertainties are still many, the year 2021 should allow a return to a certain normality. Despite the turmoil, the Federation is doing well, but nothing will really be as before in the great aeronautical family.

In 2021, we will celebrate the Federation’s fortieth anniversary. Microlight flying was born of a longing for simple, accessible powered flight, somewhere between free flight and certified aviation, which had gradually drifted away from the spirit of the pioneers (that of Santos-Dumont in 1936, or of the years just after the war). The spirit of the age also sought an aviation that was less “serious” and less thirsty for oil, more fun and more innovative. This “pirate aviation” found its legitimacy thanks to the unifying, consensual determination of its first president Alain Dreyer, who managed to bring together all the factions (already) and the loudmouths (already) of the time.

It is also thanks to the trust and imagination of the administration that our regulation was able to come into being, avoiding two pitfalls: that of complete anarchy, which would have ended this adventure, and that of certified-style regulation that penalises innovation and flying. Basically, the history of microlight flying has always steered, with more or less success, between these two pitfalls: fragmentation into factions and aeroplane-type regulation. The history has not been simple or linear; accidents, sometimes spectacular, have left a lasting mark on minds. But maturity has made it possible to find a place that nobody today disputes.

Roll on 2021! Microlighting more than ever!

The threats are still many, however: that of turning our microlights into new aeroplanes (with their constraints), that of resisting administrations that have sometimes lost the aeronautical culture of the field, and also a tendency towards the “gentrification” of our flying and a loss of selfless commitment. Compare a car, a motorbike, a boat, a telephone from 1981 and today; compare the cost of energy too…

Yet throughout all these years, microlight flying has never stopped innovating: from Magallon’s trikes to Franck Prévot’s Sky Ranger, from Humbert’s machines to the rescue parachute, from the Air Création saga to that of Aventure, from new, frugal engines derived from snowmobiles to the first electric aircraft, the list is long and is still being written. The machines are many and varied.

The crisis we are living through lets us redefine more clearly what is essential, and it demands, more than ever, a framework that is innovative and flexible, responsible and legitimate. That framework exists, and by investing more heavily in training (but not in regulation), we keep risk at an acceptable level in a much less tolerant context.

In 1981, the pioneers had understood that we also needed to show our flying in order to create the wish and the desire. That is when the first Blois microlight show was created, mainly thanks to Christian Lhomme with the support of the Federation, of which he was an elected member for a long time, and the support of that superb title Vol Moteur, with an unmissable and endearing loudmouth: René Coulon.

After a long job of persuading various players, the Federation will organise (with Vol Moteur and many other partners!) the Mondial de l’ULM at Blois on 3, 4 and 5 September 2021. To bring together the whole microlight family, from paramotors to so-called high-performance microlights, French and foreign, and throw a great party that must show that simple, innovative recreational aviation is more alive and necessary than ever!

Roll on 2021!