CD's Report
Now
a well established event at Peterborough Conington, this year's nationals
part-1 provided the usual fierce tussle to bag the country's ultimate
aerobatic prizes for Standard and Intermediate pilots. It is indeed an
eye-opener to see just how accurately you must fly to make the grade now,
and the commitment it takes
to get to the top - whilst this time the
Standard class was still dominated by biplanes, all three medal-winning
slots at Intermediate were the province of sharp and speedy monoplanes. Even
the weather came up to scratch, after a dodgy start Friday's expected pm
wind and rain holding close to the NW and SE whilst we scurried on between
the lightening to one side and gloom to the other.... floods in Cambridge
barely 8 miles distant and cloud-on-the-deck just up the A1, but up to
three-grand for us until just after 17:00 when the clag freshly generating
itself in the box stopped play. At this stage the knowns were almost
completed, the expected high-rollers showing the rest just how far they
should jump.At the Saturday 07:00 kick-off we had
Swedish-style severe CAVOK, and from bang-on 08:00 a fine rate of sequences
kept Steve Green's judging line well occupied. Inevitably the high level of
solar energy drove lots of moisture up into our bit of the sky, and we
abruptly ground to a halt after a couple of hours. It didn't either last
long or spoil the atmosphere around the Conington apron, and after a tense
break the Intermediate Free show was back on with an allowed break that very
quickly became superfluous. At the completion of the second sequence Corrine
Dennis was pushing Brian McCartney hard for the Standard lead with Robert
Woollard close behind, whilst Alex Caramella had Clive Butler and Julian
Murfit in close attendance at Intermediate. For the latter class all the
great efforts in the final unknown sequence made not a jot of difference,
the same three pilots bagging all the
gongs in the same order.
On this occasion however our friendly Italians' home country became part of
the issue, our rule book clearly requiring the national champion to be a
passport bearing Brit - so allowing Clive to scoop the crown whilst Alex
retained the gong and can look forward to a "special trophy". At Standard
however, where affairs were more straightforward although time permitted only the highest-placed ten to take on a 2nd
unknown, it was Andy McLean with the best score (too late, too late!) and
Mark Davies who made the most of the opportunity to snatch the bronze,
whilst Little Brian stretched his lead to just over 2% over Corrine's
outstanding effort..... for her at least, a rather better result than last
year!
Good flying, no serious complaints from the judging line,
lots of Joe Public in cars along the adjoining road, no noise complaints to
the Conington office, and another gruelling day for the bar staff - in other words,
situation normal and a great competition. Steve's judges were Nick Wakefield,
Gerald Cooper, Peter Macintosh, Simon O'Neill and Robert Tinkler, numerous
assistants gave freely of their time, Jen B drove the calculator, and I
thoroughly enjoyed doing the easy bit. Well done to the champions,
commiserations to the others, a thousand thanks again to all the team at
Conington, and three cheers for the meteorology that let us get on with the
job.... at least for most of the time.
Nick B
Contest Director |
British Nationals part 1 : Conington : 20/21 August
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The Flyer Trophy - Standard level National Championship
Order Pilot Aircraft type Reg'n Known1 Unkwn1 Unkwn2 AllGrps O/all %
========================================================================================
1 Brian McCartney Pitts S-2A G-TIII 1056.8 855.2 834.6 2746.6 76.721
2 Corinne Dennis Pitts S-1S G-BOXH 979.5 901.5 789.7 2670.6 74.597
3 Mark Davies Pitts S-2A G-BTUL 926.8 772.4 825.8 2525.0 70.530
4 Neil Bigrigg Pitts S-2A G-BTUL 868.2 858.7 781.1 2508.0 70.056
5 Richard Buchan Pitts S-1D G-OODI 876.6 861.0 751.9 2489.5 69.539
6 Andy McClean Pitts S-1T G-WILD 853.8 720.8 844.0 2418.6 67.558
7 Steve Lofthouse Yak-52 G-CBPY 870.6 802.3 744.8 2417.7 67.533
8 Robert Woollard Pitts S-2B G-BRVT 998.4 846.8 571.4 2416.5 67.500
9 Sam Whatmough Yak-52 G-CBRL 825.6 789.2 727.2 2342.0 65.419
10 David Jenkins Laser G-LAZA 945.6 756.2 585.4 2287.2 63.888
11 Andrew Holman-West Yak-50 G-OJDR 777.3 832.1 - 1609.4 44.955
12 John Wicks CAP-10C G-CPXC 857.1 697.1 - 1554.2 43.413
13 Farrell McGee Pitts S-1SE G-FARL 921.7 613.3 - 1535.0 42.878
14 David Cowden Pitts S-2A G-TIII 895.6 627.6 - 1523.2 42.549
H/C Harry Mason Pitts S-2B G-ICAS 808.4 708.4 - 1516.8 42.281
15 Al Coutts Pitts S-1S G-BKKZ 749.3 758.6 - 1507.9 42.120
16 Dave Cavell Yak-52 G-CBPY 703.0 726.9 - 1429.9 39.941
17 Giles Caunter Pitts S-1D G-BLAG 796.7 611.2 - 1407.9 39.327
18 Paul Tomlinson Pitts S-1C G-BXAU 711.2 597.8 - 1308.9 36.562
19 Tom Leader Robin-2112A G-RAFC 623.2 292.8 - 916.0 25.587
BAeA Intermediate National Championship
Order Pilot Aircraft type Reg'n Known1 Prog1 Unkwn1 All Grps O/all%
========================================================================================
1 Alex Caramella Extra-300L G-CCPI 1369.3 1397.6 1336.3 4103.2 76.126
*2 Clive Butler Extra-230 G-CBUA 1381.6 1366.9 1331.5 4080.0 75.696
3 Julian Murfitt CAP-222 F-WWMX 1343.1 1313.4 1289.8 3946.3 73.215
4 Rob Howarth Pitts S-1 G-MAXG 1315.2 1328.7 1260.5 3904.3 72.437
5 Ian Trask Yak 55M G-YKSS 1334.7 1148.6 1239.6 3722.9 69.070
6 Simon Abbott Pitts S-1F G-MAXG 1245.0 1247.0 1053.0 3545.0 65.770
7 Patrick Caruth Pitts S-1S G-LITZ 1323.9 960.5 1178.8 3463.2 64.252
8 Alan Wood Pitts S-1S G-BOXH 1181.3 1181.7 939.9 3302.8 61.277
9 Ian Scott CAP-10B G-BXRC 1015.9 1168.6 1058.6 3243.1 60.168
10 Mike Caskey CAP-10B G-BXRC 733.4 1287.9 1126.1 3147.4 58.393
11 Nick Richards Extra-300L D-ETTO 1292.5 731.2 952.6 2976.4 55.220
* Clive Butler is BAeA Intermediate National Champion for 2004
as the highest placed British national
British Aerobatic Association
Results after TBLP at 90% confidence with 1.20 threshold
Sequence & Group two-pass processing at 18:22:08 on 23-08-2004
BAeA Scoring System - software Ver 6:2 Apr-03
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