TLL ()

3rd Light Aviation Expo

III high-fliers weekend in Targi Kielce featured 25 machines, over 50 companies from 3 countries

2018’s Light Aviation Expo complemented with Paragiełda were held on October 13-14; more helicopters, ultra light aircraft, gliders, gyroplanes, power-gliders were on show than at the previous expos. The expo has been granted with the honorary patronage of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology. It is worth emphasizing the fact that this is Poland’s only exhibition of this type. The two-day Light Aviation Expo featured a very important, debut event - the Global Drone Conference.

Over 2,000 people were brought together to watch and admire machines, equipment, necessary accessories pilots cannot go without. Companies from Poland, Italy and Germany - producers and sellers of equipment for hang-gliders, gliders, paragliders and power-gliders were showcasing their products. The Kielce Light Aviation Expo was also the showcase for planes, helicopters, gliders and gyroplanes and among them: the Pipistrel Virus, Minifox, UL A22L2 and UL A32, AK-1, Robinson R-44, Dynali H-3; Yoyo, Xenon4, Magni Gyro, Cavalon, J-Ro, Taifun, S1 SWIFT, Jantar and other exhibits.The Polish construction power-glider - Gecko was also one of the expo’s featured attractions.

The two days' Targi Kielce expo was the presentation arena of products showcased by such brands as: Aeroprakt, APFlying, Flyargo, Boreas Aviation EC EXTREME, Skydream, Aeros and many, many more. LOT Polish Airlines has become the Light Aviation Expo’s knowledge-partner; for the first time LOT has also taken part in the event as one of the exhibitors.

- No other airline in the world can boast of such an extensive list of world and Europe champions in aviation sports - Stefan Malczewski, LOT board member proudly points out the achievements - The Boeing Dreamliners, Boeings 737, Dash are piloted by those who started the aviation adventure with gliding, rally flying, precision flying or ballooning.That's why the Light Aviation Expo was the event not to miss.

Global Drone Conference for the first time in Targi Kielce

Drones marked their place at the Light Aviation Expo previous editions. However, it was only this year that the Global Drone Conference made its debute as TLL event accompanying. The Global Drone Conference perfectly complemented the light aviation trade-show’s scope because the unmanned aerial vehicles market has been dynamically developing in Poland.The conference was co-created by the 40 speakers from Poland and abroad.The safe ways to use and fly drones was on the conference’s radar - thus it was held under the banner of the “Safe Technologies and Legal Regulations for Drones”. The issues discussed at the seminar related to legal regulations such as of the rules for safe drones use and privacy violation matters, the airspace traffic management for drones and flight instructions. Specialists addressed the issue of penalties for airspace and personal sphere violation. Plethora of interesting things about the unmanned aerial vehicles construction, their use in agriculture, the army, geodesy were also addressed within the conference scope. The event organisers succeeded in bringing together to Kielce the supreme unmanned aerial vehicles experts. Expert panels included such speakers as: Stefan Malczewski (Polish Airlines LOT), Jerzy Makula (LOT Crew), Eric Lanquetin (Air France), Joanna Wieczorek (SSW Pragmatic Solutions, LOT Classic), Paweł Korzec (DroneRadar). The Global Drone Conference brought togehther by over 100 people.The contents and high competence were highly regarded by the participants and experts.

Innovative drone designs

One of the Targi Kielce conference accompanying events was the exhibition of companies which are active in Poland’s drone market. Presentations of innovative research projects from the best technical universities in Poland were delivered by: EUROAVIA Rzeszów Scientific Club (Rzeszów University of Technology); SAE AeroDesign, MelAvio Avionics Scientific Society (Warsaw University of Technology); Inter-faculty Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Scientific Club "High Flyers" (Silesian University of Technology); the Academic Aviation Club (Wrocław University of Technology) and the Kielce University of Technology.

Excellent guests visited the Light Aviation Expo

Aviation household names were undoubtedly a great magnet to attract the Kielce aviation expo. Abundance of excellent guests and among them Captain Jerzy Makula, a glider pilot who specialises in acrobatics, a multiple world champion was a real advantage of the expo programme. "Heaven full of fire" - this is glider flights lecture delivered by Sebastian Kawa, multiple glider world champion and the world pilots ranking leader of this discipline. Only in 2018 he won 3 gold medals in several categories. Marcin Szamborski told about his round-the-globe helicopter expedition. The Kielce exhibition also hosted Janusz Orłowski aka Praszczur, the current Guinness record holder - the oldest paraglider pilot. The Kielce Light Aviation Expo also hosted Mateusz Rękas and Jacek Bogdański - ballooning lovers know these names very well. Rękas and Bogdański have recently won the Gordon Bennett Cup.