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President's Latest Report

President’s Message

by Robert Budniak - The Accidental President.

 

Behind the scenes it’s been an interesting quarter for the executive of AEFA. At the

national Electric Flight Rally, we had our AGM. I stood for the position of Vice President and was successfully elected. Our previous president Ralph Dephoff was unable to attend AEFR and the AGM due to Covid 19, but was elected as President. Shortly after the AGM, Ralph decided that his personal circumstances would not allow him to carry out the position of President and he resigned.

At a subsequent committee meeting, the committee decided to elect myself as the President. I must say that this was somewhat a leap of faith, both for the committee and myself. Being new to the AEFA committee, I considered that I was somewhat

unprepared to take on the role. However I had encouragement from a number of committee members who said they would support me where necessary, and here I am.

I will leave it to the next magazine to give you a full introduction to myself. What I would like to say in the few column inches I have is my vision for AEFA. Firstly I am encouraged by the interest and take up by pilots of eRES. The previous committee has

provided an tremendous set of rules for gliders that both new and old flyers can take up. By and large the rules, as currently published, are the right mix, enabling a cheap entry into glider competition, and yet challenging enough that the top flyers are not

scoring perfect scores all the time. There will be slight tweaks to the rules for implementation next year and the rules will hopefully remain stable for some time.

Secondly, as the SIG for Electric Gliders, AEFA has the right to conduct the selection for the F5J World Championships. Whilst its not official, I understand that there will be no F5J WC next year. I will work with the committee and competitors in order to

frame a selection system which selects the BEST flyers Australia has to represent our country.

Thirdly, I want to see more electric gliding competitions. It seems that other flying disciplines using electric power are well catered for either by SIGs or local interest. Due to the need to gain height clearances for fields, glider competitions are harder

to organise.

And finally, I want to encourage electric flying in disciplines not covered by other groups. This includes old timer flying (the planes not the pilots, though the pilots are also encouraged to participate) and occasional contests for some of the planes we may have in our sheds.

I think that’s enough for my first column. I need to leave something for next time.

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