About EMFU

Our Statutes

Our Board

David Phipps (President)

Dave has been an active model flyer for almost 40 years, flying slope soaring gliders, helicopters, FPV drones and fixed wing powered aircraft. He has been CEO of the British Model Flying Association since 2005 and Secretary of the Royal Aero Club of the UK since 2009. He has served as a Technical Officer for Unmanned Aircraft with Europe Air Sports since 2014 and was a member of the EASA ‘Expert Group’ developing the EU regulations for unmanned aircraft. He has served as President of the EMFU since its foundation.

 

Laurent Henry (Vice-President)

Laurent started model flying 30 years ago mainly with gliders models and fixed wing aircraft. Volunteer in clubs for more than 30 years, elected in 2012 as Fédération Française d’AéroModélisme (FFAM) vice president, he has been elected as president in 2017.

He started working on UAS regulation on 2014 when discussions arrived in France. He has been following regulation topics ever since.

 

Frank Tofahrn (General Secretary)

Frank is active in the area of flying wings, multicopters and paragliders. His profession is the development and as head of a testlab the CE-certification of radio systems mainly in the area of short range devices which also covers R/C-systems at a big research laboratory.

Within the federal aeromodelling commission of the German Aeroclub (DAeC) he is responsible for the area of radio matters for R/C systems and also involved in the implementation of the European regulation for unmanned aircraft (UAV) in Germany. He is the vice president of ISAD, an association representing manufacturers and users of short range devices and active in several groups of ETSI, CEPT and UAV-DACH as a representative for R/C-systems for aeromodelling.

 

Haagen Valanes (Treasurer)

 

Espen Bakke (Board Member)

 

Rob Buckley (Board Member)

Rob was elected in 2011 as secretary of the UK Large Model Association, and since 2015 has worked with the UK DfT, CAA and the other UK model flying associations to steer and define the national implementation of model flying regulation under the EASA unmanned aircraft rules. He continues to sit on several CAA working groups representing the interests of model aircraft flyers. In 2016, he was a founder member of the European Model Flying Union and is an executive board member. He started flying model aircraft in 1982, and has built and flown everything from free flight gliders to turbine powered aircraft but never really got on with helicopters. He trained as an aeronautical engineer, and since 1996 has worked on the design, airworthiness and certification of balloons, airships, light aircraft, airliners and both large and small unmanned aircraft platforms as a chartered mechanical engineer. He gained a fixed wing PPL in 2018 and now has a share in a permit to fly vintage aircraft.

 

Jürgen Lefevere (Board Member)

Jürgen is a passionate builder and pilot of large scale gliders. He can often be found on one of his favourite slopes in the Swiss Alps or on the airfield of his club near Zürich (Modellfluggruppe Erlenbach-Herrliberg), of which he’s also the vice-president. Jürgen is a member of the Regulation Working Group of the Swiss Aeromodelling Federation (Schweizerischer Modellflugverband – SMV). He was trained as a lawyer, and has more than twenty years experience as a negotiator and an expert in EU law. He is currently on sabbatical leave from the European Commission’s Directorate General on Climate Action.