Egypt was the first country in Africa and the Middle East to get into aero sports after establishing the Aero Club of Egypt in 1910. But for the past several years, the country has not been flying so high. From the outset, the club managed and sponsored anything that had to do with aero sports. Prince Ahmed Fouad, later Fouad I, was the founder of the Aero Club. Prince Abbas Halim, a former fighter pilot in the German air force during WWI, then became president of the club. Taher Pasha was third in line, followed by Lord Suleiman Dawood and Lord Amr Ibrahim, the latter two from the royal family. In the post-1952 revolution, the presidency of the club shifted slowly towards the ruling military forces, assigning marshals Mohamed Sidki Mahmoud and Mohamed Nabih Hashad as presidents. In 1981, and according to Aviation Law No 28, came another generation of presidents, including Ibrahim Kamel and Nour Farghal. The real deal started in the early 1930s after the club bought two gliders from the French Association, which made sure the Egyptians would get complete introductory training by sending for specialists for the job. 21 March 1932 was a day to remember as Egyptian pilot Mohamed Sidki performed a successful gliding attempt with the Ibis, launched by auto-towing. However, as Prince Halim observed the club members training in Almaza air field, a major obstacle faced the pilots: the lack of equipment needed for launching the gliders. The pilots tried to overcome the problem by using techniques such as auto towing but which later ended up damaging all the club's assets of glider planes. 1935 was a dramatic turning point for the sport in Egypt, thanks to Sidki who took the Ibis-II rebuilt glider up to 400m in altitude, for 20 minutes of flight time, using an 800m cable. This was enough to be considered a big achievement according to Taher Pasha, who decided to focus on the sport. Taher Pasha was King Fouad's relative and also Egypt's representative in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the world air sports federation. Taher Pasha helped the club bring in some new birds to the fleet as well as setting up a flight school in 1936 which attracted master pilots like experienced WWI Hungarian Frigyes Hefty as an instructor. Next, as air sports began spreading but ever so slightly, important institutions started getting involved, like Al-Ahram newspaper which put up a trophy for the first soaring flight from Heliopolis to the Pyramids. Laszalo Almasy was the winner, cutting 31km in 31 minutes to record the first cross-country soaring flight in Egypt. Fast forward today, and it is a fact that not many people in the country know that air sports exist in the sunny skies of Egypt. “In Egypt, people and officials only care about football, something which affects every other sport, starting from awareness to financial support,” said Wafik Al-Tabei, current Aero Club of Egypt's board of directors' representative. Al-Tabei discussed the restrictions the club faces from the security authorities in Egypt, especially after the revolutions of 2011 and 2013. Security, says Al-Tabei, are involved in every sport the club plays in, including gliders, motor gliders, parachuting, aero-modelling, balloon, para-gliding, para-motor, ultra-light and rocket launching. Al-Tabei also spoke about the deterioration of the sport due to the lack of support from the authorities. Al-Tabei said the Aero Club had the upper hand in helping the founding of similar clubs in the UAE and Jordan, however, he wasn't all too happy that those clubs had jumped ahead of Egypt. “That should make us ashamed.” From time to time officials tried to help, like Minister of Aviation Ahmed Shafik who granted the club the 6 October air field in 2003 to help players practice their sports. “After the 2011 revolution, the authorities thought that aero sports might be a threat to the county's national security, so they decided to ban it several times in the past three years,” Al-Tabei said. The last such banning has been in place since June, says Al-Tabei who added that “nowhere in the world has anybody suffered from a terrorist attack in which air sports equipment was used”. Aero Club represented Egypt in many championships abroad, including winning the rocket championship in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and the Arab Championship in Saudi Arabia in 2010 and 2011. Aviation Minister, pilot Hossam Kamal, is putting a lot of effort into aero sports in a bid for a comeback according to Al-Tabei. By organising aero festivals for example aero sports could help in attracting more tourism, the business of which has been hard hit following two revolutions in three years. Until the time comes for more stability, the future of aero sports will just have to remain up in the air. The writer is a freelance journalist.
