Edouard Potel claims new FAI triangle record
French pilot adds eight kilometres to previous record
21 August, 2025, by Cross CountryAfter an extraordinary eleven hours in the air, France’s Edouard Potel has broken Baptiste Lambert’s 350.5km FAI triangle world record set two years ago.
Launching from the Col de l’Izoard in the southern French Alps at 9.27am on 18 August Edouard flew 358.6km on his Ozone Enzo 3, averaging 33.68km/h.
Initially the route took him out and back east, then he flew west to the Tete du Sapet where he turned south, flying to a point just north of the Verdon Gorge. Here he turned north, completing the triangle shortly after 8pm. “Almost equilateral,” he noted wryly on his XContest page.
The record, which is awaiting ratification by the FAI, adds another 8km to the record set by Baptiste Lambert in August 2023 and 10km to the record Edouard himself set when he broke the FAI triangle record the year before. During that flight he averaged 30km/h and flew for 11 hours 30 minutes.
In recent years the Col de l’Izoard has established itself as the number one place to launch to fly big triangles and has been the scene of many big flights in recent days. Hans Petit recently set a junior FAI triangle world record there, flying 301km.
Edouard’s record flight was one of half a dozen 300km FAI triangles flown from the site on 18 Augus. Germany’s Fabi Buhl flew 330km while the Slovakian pilot Juraj Koren flew 327km. Markus Anders narrowly missed the 300km mark, flying 299.47km.
