CD's Report
All bar one of the ten Standard and seven Intermediate competitors had
made it in on the Friday evening. The one exception had been heard on the
radio, but discretion was the better part of valour in the face of a
lowering cloud-base so a diversion to Eaglescott was made for the night. The
pleasure of meeting friends old and new as they arrived was marred by the
tragic news of the fatal accident at White Waltham.
Saturday dawned with 500' cloud, 2,500 metres
in rain & drizzle - but that was for the Flower Show at Hampton Court, in
west London! 250 miles away in Cornwall, by 0800 any early morning mist had
burnt off to reveal a clear blue sky and rapidly improving visibility.
Undaunted by the absence of anyone with a key, the briefing was held
promptly at 0800 in the sunshine. A few moments were spent in silence
reflecting on the sad news of the day before and also on events in London on
the Thursday. With due respect, it was decided to continue with the events
planned.
Against the forecast, the wind appeared to
be southerly, so a start was made with the Standard Known. First pilot up
David Jenkins was overhead the runway for the box flight with superb timing,
within a couple of
 seconds
of the advertised 0930 local start. This first programme was flown off in
good order, one or two people dropping in hard zeros but mostly with some
pretty tidy flying. Ian Smith in the Eagle was leading the pack, with Martin
Hill and Simon Janvrin in the borrowed S-2C in 3rd place.
The wind having swung round to the
advertised northerly origin, the direction of flight was similarly changed
for the rest of the day. The Intermediate Known was flown off next, not many
surprises here, with Colwyn Darlow in the One Design edging out Alan Wood
and Corinne Dennis, sharing Pitts S-1S G-BOXH.
The Judges took a well-earned break,
giving the CD and Scorer a chance to replenish their clipboards and complete
the data entry - and make a major boo-boo; more of which in a moment.
The judges, a small team consisting of
Steve, Rachel and Howard, returned to their deliberations. Unfortunately the
sun by now had swung round (I know, I know, the earth goes round the sun,
but you know what I mean!) so that they were staring into it. However,
between them they managed to catch most of the major errors and some quite
subtle ones, too!
With the scores for Round Two all in, at
Standard, Ian Smith still led the field with Martin Hill retaining second
place, but Paul Tomlinson had come up on the rails to third. At
Intermediate, Corinne Dennis was the front runner, with Neil Bigrigg a
couple of lengths behind and Colwyn half a length behind him.
Thus we stood poised, waiting for the
final number crunching. Everyone assembled in the afternoon sunshine in
front of the clubhouse bang on 1500 local. The CD thanked the host airfield
and their staff, especially Michelle in the kitchen and Chiefy for looking
after our other needs as they arose. Also thanked were Steve and his
 Judging
team, now looking distinctly rosy. The results were read out in 'beauty
queen' order. Michelle graciously agreed to dish out the medals and
trophies. The winner of the 'Gunpowder' trophy, donated a couple of years
ago by Howard Fawkes, was Ian Smith and the newly-refurbished (by Howard)
Kernow trophy went to Colwyn Darlow; Corinne's round two score being not
quite enough to edge him out. Everyone started packing up to go home,
considering the whole weekend a good time, well had. Only then, did a major
error with the scoring come to light. A no-show competitor had been removed
from the system, which then caused the previously entered data to be
assigned to the wrong pilots. This has happened in the past, fortunately on
the previous occasion the resultant chaos has been recognised before the
publication of the results. The data below reflects the true position and I
do want to apologise for this, especially to those two pilots materially
affected by the error at the presentation ceremony. Needless to say, this
error path is being removed from the scoring software, and will not occur in
the future.
Lastly, a big thank-you to everyone who
took the effort to come to this lovely venue. Everyone seems to consider
this a long way to go, but Steve and I made it back to White Waltham by road
in 3 hours, driving through a beautiful part of the country. In reality,
it's just as easy for us as a trip to Yorkshire. Hopefully next year more
folk will come and give us a hand, to make it an even better weekend.
Ben Ellis
Contest Director and Scorer |
