CD's Report
As the saying goes – when she (the Compton Abbas weather) is good she’s
very very good, but when she’s bad she’s horrid. In this century only ’00
and ’03 have been any good whilst the rest have been misted / fogged /
clouded out, but this year’s affair was just superb – hot, blue and
somewhere very close to aerobatic heaven .... apart from a cunning little
easterly wind that in fact most pilots managed to master. So pilots, dark
glasses and sun-cream flew all about, and a truly unforgettable event was
enjoyed by all.This year the BAeA
committee's intention was to give the AWAC British Team pilots a real taste of
things to come, a stern test to set them on their way. It so happens now
that only BAeA Chairman Alan Cassidy will be making the trip to battle the
world's best advanced pilots in Poland a couple of weeks hence, and as he
was for this event flying Hors de Concours (really being an unlimited pilot
and all that) it was the stay-at-homes
 who
had to sharpen their wits to cope with Nick Wakefield’s two full-on
unknowns. But hey, they’re a tough lot those advanced pilots, and the
bruises will quickly go. Even AC found time for a zero in the second of
these sequences, just to show how fallible we all really are.
Friday afternoon’s programme was kicked
into life by a fine bunch of six Beginners, freshly minted member Randal
Hockey giving MAXG it’s first run of the weekend to emerge with that sly
grin … whilst the rest cursed their luck, their aeroplanes and whatever.
Well done Randal, almost as well to the rest – come to Fenland and aim a tad
higher please. The advanced ‘known’ rounded out the day, most here putting
reasonable scores into the bag (quite right too, this late in the year)
although first-time-at-this-level Simon Abbott did seem busier than most
holding the FunFlight EA300 on track.
At 0730 the Saturday morning sky looked as
though it might even beat Fridays brilliance, although the sole camper Simon
Cattlin did say it was even better at 0430…. The advanced brigade started
their ‘unknown’ journeys, and one or two did indeed find the going a trifle
hard. “A good game to win”, we (judges) said, and maybe some pilots thought
so too. The intermediate Free brought some calmer karma to settle the
nerves, David Jenkins’ carefully crafted solution proving hard to best,
after which these nine disappeared to acquaint themselves with the BAeA’s
very own ‘Apprentices’ challenge for the beautiful Air Squadron Trophy. We
devised this nearly-Aresti style of sequence flying to replace what used to
be a full-on timed freestyle affair for both standard and intermediate
pilots up to the early 1990’s, the better to introduce pilots to a slice of
the less formal though highly challenging business of 4-minute free
flying in a rowdy unlimited aeroplane – six point rolls, back-to-back stall
turns and half barrel-rolls in opposing directions, Derry turns, all easy
for the aeroplane but quite testing for a brain whose strict Aresti channels
are well established and seemingly so hard to escape.
We don’t usually pay much attention to Joe
Public’s watchers at our events, but this time the extreme weather plus the
undoubted popularity of the Compton Abbas airfield restaurant and perhaps
the added attraction of our own aspiring performances had the car-park
bulging and the food queue almost round the
 block
– certainly our best audience in many years. We can help you Clive, just
sign here….
Being somewhat unchallenged for time we
chose to put the advanced second unknown to the test after the lunch break,
this 326K bruiser causing quite a bit of bother. Cas Smith provided very
nearly the best score and was probably the only one with not a zero in
sight, but overall it was 2006 advanced champion Gary Ferriman who held the
day and the Don Henry Trophy was his. At intermediate the apprentices
figures teased as usual, this time Mark Davies just beating fellow BTUL
driver Neil Bigrigg into the silver slot to take away this gorgeous Aladin’s
Genie / gravy boat (strike out whichever you favour least).
What a couple of days – a bottle of that
would even melt a judge at the Icicle! Graham Hill ran a most efficient
judging line with Phil Atley, Steve Todd, Patrick Margetson-Rushmore and
yours truly tumbling the numbers with the help of a good band of assistants
and callers, and this time Steve Green demonstrated that Jen-B can take a
weekend off and the world still goes on! Overall a brilliant competition,
perhaps a hard act for Conington and Fenland to follow. See you all there.
Nick Buckenham
Contest Director |
