CD's Report
 Always a delightfully 'different' contest to tackle for a variety of
good reasons, this years Classic Aircraft and Aerobatics Club of Ireland event
drew a pretty good Brit entry who by and large got across the Friday water in quite
fair weather until the last claggy bit - a Portent of Things To Come. Being just
a couple of miles inland from the south Eire coast the airfield climate
generally has a mind of it's own, the overhead / box area often sporting quite
different visibility prospects from that just a mile or two away. We should know by
now....Saturday's briefing was indeed thus a brief
affair against a backdrop of leaden skies, attended by most bar the few
trapped somewhere
up-country at a parachute club. The warm-sector driven frontal system (aka
'crap') that was solidly forecast by the increasingly sophisticated internet sources would
apparently last until 16-2000 when 'scattered @2k' would prevail, probably, so when at
1730 even the landmark spire of Tramore church disappeared into the deepening clag the
assembled bored and restless company agreed to call it a day and plan
something far more interesting in Dunmore East. Taxis were summoned, a
block-booking made for food, and as
we all drove away .... an astonishingly rapid clearance brought CAVOK just too
late to use. Well anyway, the Guinness was good.
 All to play for on Sunday then,
probably with time for just the Unknowns, but two vain early
attempts by Jenkins-D to dodge the 'scattered @2k' stalled the show yet again.
As usual this was only overhead ... just to the south blue prevailed, so before long a plan was hatched to
install the judges by a barn a couple of miles nearer the coast - viewing a box 'tween
them and the sea marked principally by a handily prominent line of 'B' axis
cows who unfortunately - it turned out - were not quite as captive as the
judges were ... and promptly removed their presence. But the plan worked,
pilots flew, judges judged, assistants scribbled, and sequences were
completed at a fair rate .... until the expected single commercial movement
at 1300 was drowned by many times that, with the usual ten minute
stoppage windows either side. As a result it was almost 1600 before the
last advanced pilot returned to base, by which time the necessary flight-plans were
all about and departures for evening UK fuel-stops driving the visitors away.
I can't remember a time when we've had to close the show without the results
all done and dusted and gongs awarded, but a latest
and
 most
apologetic 1620 departure for Neil and I in BTUL was
just unavoidable and so these Monday-postings are the hot news
of the day. Declan O'Regan struggled
the EA200 just ahead of Alan Murphy in the Beginners class, Stephen Hipwell blew the
Standard
cobwebs well away with a fine winning sequence, Paul Tomlinson headed the Indeterminates and local
Advanced man Eddie Goggins (shades of Top Gear's
littlest fellow - has he really had his teeth whitened??) topped David Bruton's best
efforts, these latter two soon to be on their way to join Alan Cassidy at the
Polish AWAC next week. Judges included Paul van Lonkhuyzen, Gerry Humphries,
Barry Usher, Paul Tomlinson and yours truly, and various charming local
girls (and a nice lad who seemed to run the club) assisted. The gongs and
CAACI silverware will soon be on their way to the winners from EG, the
outstanding score sheets from me in deepest Cambridgeshire. We made it -
just, and by the smallest of margins. Next year of course all will be
forgotten.... Nick B
Contest Director
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