The 1997 Free Flight World Cup was again a very successful event. There were fewer competitions in the 1997 World Cup than in 1996 for classes F1A, F1B and F1C but there were significantly higher total numbers of participants in these classes, partly as a result of the 325 competitors in the World Cup event held at Sazena just before the World Championships. By contrast there were the same number of competitions in F1E but fewer competitors, this resulting in part from some poor weather at some competitions.

Exceptionally, all three classes A, B, C were each won by one competitor achieving three wins. In F1A this was Vincent Croguennec (France), including the premier victory at Sazena over 177 other competitors. F1B was clearly won by Viktor Rosonoks of Latvia with five wins, to give a comfortable margin ahead of Anselmo Zeri and Oleg Kulakovsky with two wins each. Eugeny Verbitsky achieved three wins (in the first and last competitions of the year plus one in the Antonov Cup on home soil in Ukraine) to place a World Cup victory alongside his crown as 1997 World Champion. In F1E there was also a clear winner, Reinhard Wolf winning twice to place ahead of Ivan Crha who made up his score of 88 points without a single win.

The organisation of the World Cup ran smoothly apart from the usual late receipt of results from some competition organisers. During the year results and news have been issued to organisers in the form of 3 issues of a World Cup newsletter. Results have also been made available on the internet. As competition results are received and entered into the results system a new web page is generated and e-mailed to the FAI to update the FF World Cup page of the aeromodelling section of the FAI web site. Thanks are due to Thierry Montigneaux in the FAI Office for quickly installing all of these updates.

There were no World Cup protests in 1997, but it may be noted that there were three protests in individual competitions submitted to CIAM after the competition had ended. These concerned the interpretation of the F1B rule to ban rubber motor heating and the decisions of the jury and organisers at these competitions. These protests were not handled as World Cup protests since they concerned single competition results, in accordance with the principle of World Cup juries which is under review by the CIAM Bureau following the March 1997 Plenary meeting.

Medals were presented to the 1996 winners on each class at the 1997 CIAM Plenary meeting. This establishes the full set of medals for first place and diploma for first three places in each class. Handover of the perpetual trophies has taken place at various competitions during the year.

Total number of participants in all four classes: 2603