AN Other

YOU MUST be kidding, they want to what? This seemed to be the general reaction around the office when news started coming in that the Assian Paragliding Union (Do-APU) were planning on setting up another parallel testing regime and certification standard. For those with short-term memory problems, let's have a quick refresher course in how not to set international standards, shall we.

Many years ago in a land not so far far away there were two groups of people, both had the interests of pilots at heart and both wanted to see good, repeatable testing performed on paragliding and hang gliding equipment. There was a group called Le-AFNOR and another called Za-DHV and they constantly battled each other on the fields of Europe for years boring the shit out of paraglider pilots worldwide with their inability to actually agree on anything.

In the blue corner we had Le-AFNOR who were promoting a "laissez faire" pro-EU, live-and-let-live testing regime and in the red corner Za-DHV were chaffing at the bit with hundreds of years of demonstrable engineering talent and showing signs of having spent rather too long in a Schardenfreudian Dominatrix Dungeon in Munich.

Several battles were fought and they even continued on after Le-AFNOR had renamed itself Le-EN and it's testing had been renamed LTF (dubbed Less Than Fair, by many). Eventually Za-DHV, found itself with its back against the ropes, it's trousers round its ankles and trying to stem the bleeding from its nose. The fatal blow to the famous proboscis arrived when the relatively local manufacturers ganged up and organised themselves into an association. Certain pronouncements were made, and they were made in a tone of voice most of us will remember from childhood.

Most memorable among these declarations was the one beginning "For fuck sake, stop acting like overpaid, spoiled assholes and join the EN testing regime or we will stop using your testing facilities you twats." This seems to have done the trick as within a year or so, Za-DHV modified its testing and finally came in line with the rest of Za-World.

So it was with great trepidation that the world of free-flight opened its curtains on an overcast Monday morning in September, took a big yawn and uttered the words, "Bloody hell, not again".

It would seem that Do-APU seem set to try and repeat history, but this time in Asia and they're calling their shiny new tests AN. Very imaginative.

Luckily, of course, we can examine history, learn from our mistakes as a mature, wise sport and ensure they're not repeated at the expense of Joe Pilot.

History gives us a few pointers so we can know what to expect. Looking carefully, we can see plenty of examples of western cultures treating middle-eastern and far-eastern groups with the respect and courtesy one would expect from mature societies. The Westerners have almost never simply ignored local wishes and ridden over the people and their culture without a care in the world. Neither have western civilisations invaded these parts of the world and massacred entire populations at the whim of a cretinous inbred hereditary monarch with all the mental prowess of a 4x2 piece of Nordic Pine. Oh no.

So... good luck with that then Mssrs. Do-APU and Co!  [Or should we just call you Steve - Ed]

Pie in the Sky
Funnier than the 1908 "Louis Bleriot Tree-Landing" video