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days after the attempt, the complete record file must be in the hands of NAA. Four months are allowed the national aero club to certify a world record as a national record and three months for a world "class" record. 

Within eight days of its certification as a national record, the file must be forwarded to FAI headquarters in Paris accompanied by its certification as a national record and a request for certification as a world class or world record. 

At FAI Headquarters, the file may be turned over to a technical committee for further investigation. FAI reserves the right to demand further proof in support of the calculations given. They may refuse certification if the information is insufficient.

After its review, FAI  advises member clubs of the certification of the new record. However, the record remains tentative during a three-month period when it my be subject to protest. Any FAI national aero club can review and inspect the record dossiers on file at the FAI headquarters.

FAI enjoys an incidental claim to fame as one of the world's most successful international organizations. For over 50 years, this cosmopolitan group, using the international conference table as its chief tool, has enjoyed a record of successful and constructive international cooperation in promoting aviation. Even during the chilliest of cold war periods, FAI has held its annual meetings and successfully completed it work.

Once a year, always in a different country, delegates from the member national aero clubs meet in general conference to discuss and act on agenda items submitted by the various members. The last general conference was held in Barcelona 6-10 October 1960.

Between general conferences, FAI affairs are conducted at meetings of international committees: aerobatics, aeromodeling, private and touring, helicopters, medicine, parachuting, soaring, sporting aviation, and the newly established one for astronautics. These committees met in Paris last spring. VAdm. R. B. Pirie, DCNO (Air) and NAA Director, was a delegate on the Private and Touring Committee and on an ad hoc committee to study FAI statutes.

FAI uniquely combines the old and the new——ways unchanged since the birth of aviation and provisions as new as the latest advances of science. At the conference in Barcelona in 1960, FAI added sections to the Sporting Code to provide for records for "the performance achieved by jet-propelled, non-air breathing rockets." A standing committee established for astronautics held its first meeting in Paris last February where rules for space records were further refined and details worked out.

The new rules, proposed by the

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FAI DIPLOME DE RECORD for 1960 record flight is presented to the Marines' LCol. T. H. Miller by VAdm. R. B. Pirie at NAA's Secretary of Contest Board, Tony Mahlman, looks on.

American member club, had their beginning in a meeting in the summer of 1960 presided over by Jacqueline Cochran, President of FAI for two years in 1959 and 1960 and current president of NAA. The NAA contest board worked out the proposals for certifying space records and took them to the Barcelona conference.

Five records were established: duration of flight with earth orbit; altitude without earth orbit; greatest mass lifted without earth orbit, and greatest mass lifted with earth orbit.

Requests for certification of records in each of these categories are now being processed. On 12 April 1961, the Russian Aero Club sent a cable to FAI headquarters requesting certification of the Yuri Gagarin space flight.

Application for certification of rec-

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NAA PRESIDENT and famed aviatrix, Jacqueline Cochran, makes 1960 carrier visit.

ords in the non-earth orbit categories have been submitted for Astronaut Alan Shepard's space flight which was observed by NAA contest officials headed by Miss Cochran and Jacques Allez, President of FAI, who was present as an honored guest.

Currently FAI lists 412 records held by men and airplanes of various countries. Of these, the United States holds 113, including all of the outstanding world records. 

With the dossier of Navy Lts. Richard Gordon and Bobbie Young in FAI hands, and all enclosures pertaining to their Bendix Trophy flight painstakingly prepared by the National Aeronautic Association, it can be anticipated that the already imposing U.S. collection of Diplomes de Records will be increased in short order.

JULY 1961                                             19