Well,
what a good day and a half ……
The sun shone on Yorkshire. Friday was a glorious day with 60
kilometres visibility. Friday afternoon beginners briefed and ready, sadly
only two pilots, however both put up a good show with Andrew Holman-West
just taking first place. Breighton was my first contest in 1992, seems a
long time ago.
Saturday started at 0600hrs for me; looked out of the window, the
weather looked the same as Friday. Unfortunately the vis did reduce as the
morning progressed. We had a briefing for the management at 0745hrs, with
Graham Hill as Chief Judge with Steve Green, Debbie Brown, Ann Willis,
Brian Gleave, Peter Macintosh, Steve Todd and Corinne Dennis. JP was in
charge of registration and scoring. The briefing proper started on the
nail at 0800hrs. We put the box at the end of the airfield to the East,
the aerobatic wind being from the North. Breighton has many disused
runways and these in the past have caught one or two out, picking up the
wrong runway out of a figure and going off axis. That was not the case in
2004 - we had a different problem. The disused on the A axis was half the
box at the upwind end, and some pilots were determined to stay above this
feature and so conducted some of their sequence up-wind and out. During
the Known sequence some cloud started to form in the box; this caused a
number of zeros due to cloud being between the Judges and the judged.
Always remember, if you can’t see the Judges there’s a possibility they
will not be able to see you! By the end of the Known the first three were
Alan Wood, Dave Cavell and Mark Davies. Last years winner Alex Smith did a
spot of cloud dancing and collected zero’s for being unseen.
The unknown was started after a Judges break. The top four in this
sequence were Alex Smith, followed by Richard Buchan, Alan Wood and Harry
Mason. In the final results Alan Wood kept his lead by over 3% from Dave
Cavell, with Richard Buchan in third spot.
As time was on our side a second unknown was completed, Alan Wood being
on grand form yet again. We had a good contest. Many thanks to Brian Brown
and Breighton for hosting us again in 2004.
Tom Cassells
Contest Director
