Once upon a time, there was the icare cup…

Daniel Raibon Pernoud, Michel Raibon, Pierre Martin and a few others were immediately won over by this new sporting discipline.

June 1974 : One month after the FFVL, the Delta Club de St Hilaire is founded. At its head: Daniel Raibon Pernoud, then President of the Syndicat d’Initiative de St Hilaire.

September 28 and 29, 1974: The Delta Club and the Syndicat d’Initiative de St Hilaire organize the 1st Coupe Icare : a delta competition with some fifty participants, including precision landing as the star event! For the first time, the people of Grenoble witnessed the spectacle of the “bird-men”, and the Grenoble-Chambéry axis was paralyzed!

In 1976, the Coupe Icare welcomed more than 200 competitors; 2 targets had to be set up to manage landings: a red one for even-numbered competitors and a yellow one for odd-numbered competitors!

1977, the Coupe Icare is cancelled – due to strong northerly winds.

From July 29 to August 12 1979, the 6th Coupe Icare hosted the 2nd World Free Flight Championships… A great moment in the history of free flight in St Hilaire!

• 225 participants
• 25 countries represented
• Tens of thousands of spectators
• The landing field covers 5 hectares, on which the City of Grenoble stands are installed.
• The French team is world champion
• The first Frenchman, Gérard Thévenot, is third
• It’s a huge media success: 2 hours of live coverage on Antenne 2, on Saturday August 11.
• Federation membership up 50%, …..

After the pinnacle of the World Championships, the following years (80 to 83) were very tough, especially as competitions shifted to distance events and no longer interested spectators.

The Coupe Icare hosts the 1st European Tandem Hang Gliding Championships, but the organizers are wondering about the future of the event and are considering calling it a day…

THE 80’S

In the early ’80s and until the arrival of paragliding in 1986, the event became more convivial and festive.

In 1983, creation of the International Free Flight Film Festival (inspired by the Chapelle en Vercors Caving Film Festival).

The Festival takes place in the Rocheplane Medical Center auditorium, with 10 films in competition in the Super 8 category and 14 films in the 16 and 35 mm categories.

The festival’s first jury will be chaired by Pierre-François Degeorges (France), presenter of the famous Antenne 2 program “Les Carnets de l’Aventure” and a loyal friend of St Hilaire, who never missed an edition of the Festival until his death in 2003.
Alongside him are Bettina Gray (USA), Peter Janssen (Federal Germany), Yves Ballu (France) and Jacques Dubourg (France).
British director Léo Dickinson wins the overall Festival Grand Prix for his film “Sailing above the Alps”. German Charlie Jost – now President of the German Free Flight Federation – wins the Grand Prix for Super 8 film with “Vol libre, un rêve devient réalité”, while Americans Norman Smith and Scott Randon take the Audience Award with “Double High”.

That year,the first disguises made their appearance, on the initiative of a few drivers… We remember Alain Jacques’ slipper, Philippe Bernard’s bathtub, Thierry Crozzoli’s dragon or Bruno Dugueyt flying in his dustbin, ….

In 1984, the Marché de l’occasion was born and the first professional exhibitors set up shop in the fields.

Disguises are gaining new fans: astronauts, gorillas, flowerpots, ….

At the Film Festival, Georges Morel’s “Vertiges” wins the Audience Award.

The years 1985-1986 were marked by the arrival of paragliding. In 1985, Daniel Raibon Pernoud took a paragliding course at Mieussy and brought back a film: “Entre ciel et herbe” (Between Sky and Grass) by Isabelle Colbrant, the first paragliding film to be entered in the International Free Flight Film Festival.

The following year, he took a dozen residents of St Hilaire with him on a new course at Mieussy. On their return, chainsaw in hand, they shaped the current take-off, organized the first paragliding competition in June 1986 and put forward St Hilaire as a candidate for the 1st French Paragliding Championships.

In 1987, the 14th Coupe Icare welcomed a guest of honor: Australian Peter LLOYD, President of the F.A.I. (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale). At the Film Festival, Philippe Bernard’s “Supermax” wins the Grand Prix and Prix du Public.

That same year, in July, St Hilaire hosted the first French Paragliding Championships, and in June, the 1st Pari d’Icare: caving, climbing and paragliding triathlon, which was repeated only once, in 88.

In 88, the first International Advertising Film Festival on the theme of air and flight was held alongside the Film Festival.

That same year, the 1st European Paragliding Championships were held in parallel , from July 16 to 19.

In 1989, as the event grew in importance, the Icare Festival Organisation (IFO) association was founded , with its headquarters at the St Hilaire du Touvet Tourist Office.

That same year, Bruno Cusa’s “Emei Shan … Vol de Chine” won the Festival Grand Prix and “Super Max II” won the Audience Prize.

THE 90’S

Over the course of the 90s, the Coupe Icare gradually took on the face we know today…

– The Film Festival: -In 1996, it moved out of the Rocheplane medical center’s auditorium for a gala evening; for the first time, it took place under a huge big top set up in the ski resort parking lot.

In subsequent years, all festival screenings took place under this big top, before we moved to the heart of the event in 2000, under a smaller big top adjoining the Air Sports Show, enabling us to offer non-stop daytime screenings in addition to the official screenings.

A few films will mark these years:
“C’Mon geese”, Festival Grand Prix in 91, “Vol bivouac – Cap 444”, Festival Grand Prix in 92, “D’Hélices de Chine”, Prix du Public in 92, “Yi rui long, troubadour du ciel”, Festival Grand Prix in 94, “Le vagabond des airs”, Prix du Public in 94, “Escape”, Grand Prix du Festival in 96, “La montgolfière qui croyait au paradis”, Grand Prix du Festival in 97, “Il vole avec les oies”, Prix du Public in 97…..

– The Air Sports Show: Le Marché de l’occasion, created in 84 by pilots, became the Marché du neuf et de l’occasion in the early 90s. which later became the Icare Expo we know today.

In ’92, the first list of exhibitors included 25 manufacturers and dealers.
The first big top will be erected in ’94 and will host 80 exhibitors.
The show will be fully covered in 96.
The sale of second-hand equipment is also structured, with a stand for second-hand paragliders under the show and an outdoor area reserved for hang gliders.

– Costume contest: From 1987 onwards. With him, the skies over the Coupe Icare take on a crazy, colorful allure… It’s worth noting that we come across some funny contraptions: from the witch to the frog man, from the aviator to the comic book hero, not forgetting a catamaran in the sky, a flying Ratrac, a stork on stilts, a trio of 3 little pigs, a rickshaw and his Chinese woman, a cowboy on horseback, a yellow submarine, a Christ on the cross, a letter carrier on a bicycle, etc. ….

– Aerial demonstrations : They began slowly, in the early 90s, with the IBIS Show, then the loops of Switzerland’s Olivier Valiton and the aerial ballet of Les Ailes de K completed the show, …. Later, they will be expanded with demonstrations of gliding, parachuting, paramotors, kites and other flying machines…

– Children’s workshops were introduced in ’96 and became the Espace Enfants in early 2000.

– Music, entertainment and street shows are added to the Coupe Icare program year after year.

The decade’s highlights :

• In 1993, the Coupe Icare celebrates its 20th anniversary : a week of festivities, a Festival of Festivals, the first rigid wing gathering, entertainment in Lumbin….
• 1997: American Francis Roggalo – the father of delta – visits the Coupe Icare and receives a standing ovation at the Festival gala evening!
• At the end of the 90s, the Coupe Icare teamed up with the Rhône Alpes Region, a privileged partner that enabled it to achieve greater recognition and media coverage.
• From 1991 to 1998, St Hilaire du Touvet also hosted the annual Journées médicales du Vol Libre in autumn.

THE YEARS 2000

The Coupe Icare is approaching 30! The age of maturity

The framework of the event is now clear:
An International Free Flight Film Festival
An air sports show
Hang glider and paraglider pilot costume contest
Aerial demonstrations
A hot-air balloon competition
Children’s area
Music and street performances

Not to mention a whole host of events, including a finesse contest, distance challenge, hang-gliding museum, exhibitions, etc. ….

But the work isn’t over yet! There are still things to refine and improve… And then there’s always the need to invent, to surprise, to give the public a taste for coming and coming again… So the organizers refine, improve and invent to seduce a larger public every year….

Music takes its place at the Coupe Icare
… First with the Rock’en Vol festival, in 2000 and 2001, under the cafeteria big top, then from 2002 onwards,
the Turbulences festival
took over and moved to the South Deco. The last edition of Turbulences took place in 2005, a victim of its own success.

Meeting Tura: in 2002, Etienne Chambolle presented us with his film “Les ballons pirates de Rio” … and it was love at first sight! Since then, Tura has been present every year, and with him a host of Brazilian balloons will be launched, day and night! Great moments of poetry and emotion…

Thrills and chills too in the skies above the Coupe Icare with breathtaking demonstrations performed by the world’s best pilots: hang gliding and paragliding, speed gliding, wingsuit, glider aerobatics, air force aerobatics team, ….. and unique aerial shows such as Fil d’Ariane in 2003, Tura’s 2,000 paper balloons that light up the night, Jenco’s 4 Fun ballets (an aerial ballet of luminous radio-controlled planes) or the flight of Christian Moullec and his wild goose patrol in 2006, ….

New aerial disciplines are now finding their place at the Coupe Icare: kites, but especially motorized ones: ulm, pulma, paramotors, autogyro…

In 2005, the Coupe Icare was mourned for the first time by an accident.

Precious appointments
…

as in 2000, with American,
David Barish
– inventor of paragliding, or more recently, in 2006, with
Nicolas Hulot.

The Film Festival is on the move ….. Starting in 2004, the Festival decentralized, meeting up with the Grenoble public after the event at the CRDP hall. And in 2006, it set up its tent on the South Deco, in place of Turbulences.

When birds find their place at the Coupe Icare
… Since 2003, the Aigles du Léman have been offering falconry demonstrations.

2020 cancellation of the Coupe Icare (COVID pandemic)
2021 Coupe Icare reduced without Icarnaval

Tura with Daniel Raibon Pernoud and Nicole Raibon

On the safety front: in 2004 and 2005, the zip line – erected by NSD, Airwave, Ozone, Sup’Air and Horizon – will enable pilots to test their emergency parachutes. From 2006 onwards, an unplugging team will be on hand to help out any stragglers!

At the Lumbin landing zone, too, events are expanding, with the Fête du Sport now taking pride of place alongside aerial activities. 2007 will see the birth of a brand new event: the Icare Mômes Book Fair: a children’s book fair featuring books, conferences and workshops on the theme of aerial sports and ornithology.

From 2000 onwards, a patchwork exhibition-competition on the theme of air, flight and wind presents a different view of free flight. It is held every 2 years in the church of St Hilaire.

The collaboration with Bruno Thery in 2001 and from 2003 to 2007 for colorful and delirious posters.

When the Coupe Icare talks about the environment and citizenship, it sets up in 2006 – thanks to the AREMACS association – an action for collecting and sorting garbage.

From 2000 onwards, Aérial has been working with the magazine, taking over from Vol Libre Magazine.

Etc…