Putting up a brave face a day after it came to light that its claim for the fastest round-the-world trip in a micro-light aircraft has been cancelled, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said on Wednesday that it still has a ‘legitimate claim’ on the record and will appeal against the rejection.However, according to sources, IAF’s claim for even the national record has been rejected due to lack of “supporting evidence”.While the IAF said it has “successfully completed” the circumnavigation in 80 days and has bettered the existing record, the National Sports Federation for Aero Sports —Aero Club of India — has rejected the claim as IAF did not send across the required documents to ratify the attempt despite ‘repeated reminders’ and time extensions.“We received the record claim but it was not supported by verifiable documentation. The Air Force has been given repeated reminders about the required documents,” an ACI spokesperson said.While the IAF is firm on its claim that the entire flight was tracked by satellite and “was for the world to see”, where it seems to have gone wrong is failing to obtain official records of the journey along the way.During the course of the expedition, the micro-light aircraft landed at 84 different places and to stake a claim for the record, each of these landings needed to be corroborated by local aviation authorities. However, IAF could only manage to get 28 corroboration certificates to support its claims.“As the crew landed at some uncontrolled airfields and at times unmanned and unprepared surfaces in remote areas, 28 corroboration certificates were taken and these were brought to the notice of ACI. These 28 certificates provide a representative fraction and the IAF is trying to obtain more of them,” the IAF spokesperson said.ACI sources insist that there is no ground for appeal for reconsideration as enough concessions have already been given, but IAF is insisting that is has a legitimate claim to the record and ‘may prefer to make an appeal’ to the international aero sports body — Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) — that had rejected the claim.While the blame-game is expected to continue over the next few days, the fact is that the feat has not been officially registered either as a national or a world record as claimed by the Air Force.Even with little possibility of the cancellation being reversed, the IAF has taken a positive outlook to the whole affair. “Irrespective of the ratification of our claim by the ACI or the FAI, the IAF’s adventure spirit would continue to attempt many more such feats,” an IAF statement said.
