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In August 2014 I (re-)discovered building and flying remote controlled aircraft and soon after started focusing on large scale gliders (4m wingspan and more). I now own and regularly fly a number of amazing gliders, and have some exciting new projects under way. Building and flying these gliders would not have been possible without the support and help from friends, in particular from our local club Modellfluggruppe Erlenbach-Herrliberg (near lake Zürich in Switzerland), of which I am also the vice-president. My build blog on this website regularly reports on some of our projects.

Apart from flying scale gliders, I also assist the Swiss Aeromodelling Federation (SMV) with legal and EU expertise and am a member of the board of the European Model Flying Union (EMFU). My aim is to help shape and implement EU legislation on unmanned aircraft so that it will better support model aircraft operations and avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and restrictions. In doing so I am lucky to benefit from my background as an EU lawyer and negotiator, as well as having worked for the EU Commission both as a consultant and as a civil servant between 1998 and 2014. Over the past few years I’ve also had the pleasure of working closely together with a range of associations throughout the European Union, including in particular the German Model Flying Association (Deutsche Modellflieger Verband (DMFV)), as well as various others.

The new EU legislation is far from perfect and I would have preferred it to accommodate many more of our concerns, but we did manage to include a number of important exemptions for model aircraft pilots, thanks to our joint efforts. More information on this you can find in the Regulation section of the EMFU website, which I manage.

Jürgen Lefevere
Switzerland

 

The Site’s Author with his Chocofly Diana2 (1:3.5)