Fédération Aéronautique Internationale

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The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is a standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. It is the international governing body for all airborne sports. This includes both man-carrying and unmanned vehicles (such as model aircraft).

To have one's flight registered as a "World's Record," one has to meet the rules of this organization, which includes that the record must be a certain percentage greater than the existing record. In the late 1930s, aircraft ordered by the air forces of various nations began to dominate such records as speed, distance, payload, and height. Sometimes such nations claim the world's record as their own, even if it fails to meet FAI standards, but these are not "official." The classic example of failing to meet a requirement but still getting recognition involved the world's first spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin, who did not land in his Vostok spacecraft.

FAI was founded in 1905.

The air sports that it governs are: