Luc Armant’s 463km record flight in Texas on 2 July 2014 will not stand as a North American continental record according to the FAI.
Christine Rousson, competitions manager with the FAI, said the claim for the open distance continental record – the longest ever paraglider flight in North America – could not be upheld because the pilot’s competition licence was issued in France, not the USA.
In a “strange” quirk of the rules, pilots can only hold continental records if they have a sporting licence issued by a country in the region. French pilots with French sporting licences can not hold a North American paragliding record, and US pilots with US sporting licences can not hold a European paragliding record.
Christine Rousson said: “The Section 7 [rules] don’t allow a continental record to be held in an another continental region than the one who issued the FAI sporting licence.”
Luc Armant confirmed he had been told his record North American flight wouldn’t be ratified and said the rule was an odd one. “That is correct, I just saw that strange rule on the section 7D.”
Despite earlier speculation that the flight would also be a new world record for a flight to a declared goal, Luc said that wasn’t the case.
“For the declared goal, unfortunately on that day my declared goal point, at about 430km, was more to the west,” Luc said.
“The irony of it is that I flew over Russell Ogden’s and other’s declared goal north of Ozona while Russ flew over my declared goal!”
Despite the technicalities, Luc’s flight is the longest paraglider flight ever flown in North America and is the second furthest paraglider flight in history.
The North American open distance record remains with Will Gadd, who flew 423.4km in Texas in 2002.
The declared-goal world record remains with Honorin Hamard, who flew 423.5km from Quixada in Brazil in November last year.
More at www.fai.org/civl-records.
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