The UK Nationals were first held at Sywell in 1995, a great improvement on Wickenby where facilities had hardly changed since the RAF abandoned it after the war. Initially the function rooms of the Aviator Hotel have been used for briefings, but latterly the facilities of the Northamptonshire School of Flying were patently preferable. Previously too the event has been scheduled to commence on a Thursday for three days, but this year ~ for good reason ~ briefings were scheduled for Thursday evening, with more flying concentrated into Friday and Saturday.

For the Contest Director the event was comparatively uneventful. Everybody who wanted to fly attended the mandatory briefing, turned up on time next day, and flew. Met. prevented a start until 1400 on Friday, the outcome of which was that the last group (Advanced second known) was unable to fly on Saturday.

For years I have been endeavouring to incorporate the Four Minute Freestyle into the National Championship, and this year both BAeA and CIVA agreed. This was the last flight of the contest and all participating pilots behaved well without frightening anybody but themselves. That event was won deservedly by Nick Wakefield, and the overall National Championship by an emotional Tom Cassells.

Mark Waldon won Advanced with some extra-ordinarily high scores.

Chief Judge was Pavol Kafka, assisted by Graham Hill, Ben Ellis, Nick Buckenham, and Charles Kirk, scorer was Jen Buckenham, ATC was Frank Bird, and NSF hostess was Lucy Kembell, who also presented the awards.

Eric Marsh, Contest Director.
 
 

              British National Championships : Sywell, Northants : 5-8 Sept
              -------------------------------------------------------------
                               Unlimited Champion 2002

Order   Pilot            Aircraft type   Reg'n     Program1  Unkwn #1   4m Free  All Grps  O/all %
==================================================================================================
  1  Tom Cassells        CAP-232         F-GOTC      4409.7    2617.8    2722.0    9749.5   78.372
  2  Nick Wakefield      CAP-232         F-GYRO      4243.5    2567.2    2907.3    9718.1   78.120
  3  Mark Jefferies      Laser           G-VILL      3764.3    2609.7    2621.9    8995.9   72.315
  4  Kester Scrope       CAP-222         F-WWMX      4251.9    2388.5    2097.9    8738.3   70.243
  5  Alan Cassidy        CAP-232         F-GYRO      3402.5    2589.4        -     5991.9   48.167
 
  Note - Kester Scrope also awarded BAeA unlimited bronze medal for 3rd in the
  Aresti sequences (ie. excl. 4-min freestyle)

                                Advanced Champion 2002
 
Order   Pilot            Aircraft type   Reg'n     Program1  Unkwn #1  All Grps  O/all %
========================================================================================
  1  Mark Walden         Pitts S-2A      G-STUA      2920.4    2418.8    5339.1   79.688
  2  Steve Carver        Pitts S-2S      G-EWIZ      2771.1    2548.6    5319.7   79.399
  3  Dave Kaberry        CAP-231         F-GKKI      2556.9    2537.2    5094.1   76.031
  4  Gary Ferriman       Pitts S-2S      G-EWIZ      2614.0    2344.6    4958.6   74.009
  5  Adrain Howe         Zlin-50LX       G-MATE      2662.8    2115.4    4778.2   71.317
  6  Cas Smith           Pitts S-2B      G-ICAS      2579.3    2176.8    4756.0   70.985
  7  Graham Archer       Extra-300L      G-IIZI      2389.3    2204.5    4593.8   68.565
  8  John Paulson        Extra-300L      G-IICM      2322.3    2034.3    4356.6   65.024
  9  Simon Cattlin       Yak-55M         RA-44537    2380.9    1932.3    4313.2   64.376
 10  John Vize           Pitts S-1T      G-IIIL      1991.9    2064.3    4056.2   60.541
 11  Robert Tinkler      Pitts S-1T      G-IIIL      1942.9    1434.4    3377.4   50.409
 
  British Aerobatic Association
  Results after TBLP at 90% confidence with 1.20 threshold
  Sequence & Group two-pass processing at 13:31:40 on 08-09-2002
  BAeA Scoring System - software Ver 5.1 Jun 01