Sean Fidler

Sean began competing in soaring competition in 2011 after several years of learning cross-country soaring from his father, Robert Fidler, Dr. John Iacobucci, David Nelson, Chuck Kotila, and several other experienced Ionia, Michigan based cross-country pilots. As a former U.S. Sailing Team member, Sean leveraged his sailboat racing and coaching experience and quickly adapted to the complex weather scenarios, strategy development, and tactical decision making required for sailplane racing. By 2015, Sean had qualified to represent the United States Soaring Team at the FAI Pan American Gliding Championship (Chilhowee, TN), placing third place in the 15m class in very challenging conditions. Sean is proud to have his wife Tiffany as his crew “boss” for most contests. In addition to attending roughly 30 soaring competitions over the past 10 years, Sean and Tiffany have also organized several regional SSA contests and four FAI Sailplane Grand Prix USA Qualifiers (Ionia, Seminole Lake 2x, and Bermuda High 2021). Internationally, Sean has competed in Sailplane Grand Prix Australia (2016) finishing 3rd, reached the podium of two FAI SGP USA’s, competed in the FAI World Gliding Championships Australia (2017, 18m), and competed in both North American FAI Pan American Gliding Championships (Chilhowee 2015 and Canada 2019). Sean and Tiffany (and their newly born son Vaughn) are all extremely excited to have earned another opportunity to represent the USA at our second FAI World Gliding Championship. We hope to improve on the promising results we achieved in Australia at the 2017 FAI WGC’s (18m class).