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  On 2 April, 2005 Valery Shkulenko (town of Khimki of the Moscow Region), the Russian aeronaut, 310 hours in flight, established a new world record in duration of flight of the smallest in the world hot-air airship of the BX-2 category (according to the FAI classification). The World Air Sport Federation (FAI) with its headquarters in Lausanne , Switzerland , keeps track of all records set up by aircraft, balloons and airships. Up to the present day, the world has not seen an attempt to build such low-volume hot-air airship, although the FAI record register provides a "niche" for this type of vehicle.
The organizers of the record flight are the Augur Aeronautical Centre and the Federation of Aviation Sports of Russia.
The record of 46 minutes 38 seconds was fixed by instruments and confirmed by the authorized sports commissioner Yury Vetrov from the Federation of Aviation Sports of Russia. During the flight, the airship reached altitude of 70 metres . The world record-holder Nikolay Galkin governed the flight and co-ordinated operation of ground services.
Today the record register represents four Russian sportsmen: Nikolay Galkin (flight duration record on a hot-air airship, BX-4 category) - February 2004; Natalia Volodicheva and Ekaterina Kochetkova (flight duration record among women on hot-air airship, BX-4 category) - February 2005; Leonid Putintsev (speed record on a gas airship, BA-02 category) - February 2005. Now the records homologation file of the 5th record made by V. Shkulenko (2 April 2005) are being formalized in the Federation of Aviation Sports of Russia to be sent to the FAI headquarters in Switzerland .
The Au-29 one-seat airship "Zyablik" ("Chaffinch") was designed and built by the Augur Aeronautical Centre in 2005. Its envelope volume is 860 cu. m . The payload, including a pilot, is 150 kg . This vehicle is capable of attaining the speed up to 40 km per hour, which is an excellent characteristic for this category of airships. The airship is much easier to fly than conventional aircraft: even a person very far from aviation, after a brief instruction, can appreciate delights of a flight.
The record flight started at 8.36 (take-off) and ended at 9.23 (landing) near the town of Ramenskoye of the Moscow Region. 40-year-old Valery Shkulenko said: "My hot-air airship is easy to fly. I was glad to fid out that it behaved remarkably well even when it was moving into the wind. Such hot-air airships are an outright gift for those who like sky rides."
The first quarter of the year 2005 was marked by several world records established by Russian sportsmen and sportswomen. And it does not result from a mere chance, but is a specific intermediate outcome of the longstanding development of the Russian aeronautics which claims for itself a more important part than organization of advertising or entertainment flights.
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