CD's
Report
I arrived late Thursday night at a delightful B & B in Holbeach looking
forward to Flying - weather Fun weather Trophies & Medals weather
.. the late night forecast did not look good for the week end at all; high
winds, low cloud and rain, thunderstorms etc. with occasional cloud breaks
for late Friday and Saturday evening; it reminded me of Compton in 2004
but in the end we managed to declare a result at all levels.
The entry list showed 3 Beginners, 22
Standard and 12 Intermediate entries, so with a total of 5 sequences to do a
possible 83 flights to cram in all in the evenings? - with that weather
forecast?! In the morning it became obvious that Fenland was going to be
blessed with a window of opportunity and at the 12.00 Friday brief we had
one Beginner entry (Rob Deeth) and 10 Intermediates the latter all agreed
that if the weather held they would go for all three sequences on the day.
Suffice to say Rob Deeth (who flew after the 1st intermediate sequence) had
a tough time of the competition and just managed to beat himself to the post
in his Robin 216-i with an acceptable 68.478% well done.
 David
Jenkins (Laser-Z200) kicked off the Intermediate proceedings with a sterling
flight demonstrating it was obvious we had a strong cross box wind to
contend with and Pilots eventually got the message to have a cup of tea
and a Kit-Kat when motoring upwind between figures. With the Known finished
5 Pitts led the field over the Lazer with G-BTUL running 1st and 2nd Neil
Bigrigg and Mark Davies. The Free followed with some free breaks and some
cloud dodging on the way and by just gone 16.00 we had completed the Free.
With Paul Tomlinson (Pitts S-1T G-OSIT) nudging nearly 80% closely followed
by David Jenkins and Luke Goddard (Pitts S1 G-MAXG) the contenders
shuffling positions became Paul, Luke and David knocking Neil and Mark away.
I needed sun cream at this stage weather
forecasts! and after a short break for the Judges we cracked on with the
Unknown. And yet again the order of the top three changed! It was a very
competitive finish. In the end Luke Goddard took 1st place by 0.28 % from
Paul Tomlinson with David Jenkins taking the Bronze. A quick presentation
followed to allow Pilots to shoot off home before chief Judge Peter Mac,
Steve Todd and I went for a quiet meal in Holbeach which turned into 16
Pilots taking over a restaurant and a 4 hour meal! another story.
 Saturday
briefing with 18 Standard Pilots and 26 required flights for the McAully
Trophy did not look good the RAF forecast and actual was showing Cr***y
weather to say the least. But Fenland had some sort of microclimate and we
managed to start flying the Known + 3 at 09.00 in high winds and
threatening weather with David Slater in his Pitts confirming Fridays
strong winds. There followed a series of stop starts, rain, breaks, no
horizon etc. and Ben Ellis wanting to go and explore Fenland good thing he
didnt as we were back on the Judging line toot suite. James Hallam (Laser
G-CBHR) went tech (mag problems) and by 12.00 and 11 flights later G-MAXG
(Randal Hockey) decided that the weather was winning.
 There
followed that sit and wait for improvement for a couple of hours during
which time James managed to get his mag problem fixed. There were only three
flights to do to complete the Known but with 2,000 foot winds of 45 knots
and more and the cloud base down at 1,500ft and forecast for worse it was
eventually decided to call it a day. Thanks are due to James Hallam, John
Smith (Stampe G-HJSS) and Randal Hockey who kindly offered to scratch to
enable a result to be declared. Ed Harding (G-MAXG) took the podium and
Trophy with 77.195% closely followed by Charlie Kimball (S2A G-WREN) and
Adrian Willis (Extra 200 G-EEK) taking the bronze by 1% from his son
Jack. All flights well flown in difficult conditions.
Peter Mac and his team of Judges braved
the rain and cold so thanks to Nick B, Steve Todd, Corinne
 Dennis,
Phil Atley and Lynne Westnage and all the scribes and of course Jen B!
From Fenland Ray and Simon (tower), Keith
(fuel) and Diane (food) all made us feel most welcome throughout our stay.
Despite those cold high winds the smiles never ceased Ray was also dealing
with his annual CAA inspection on the Saturday and between them, us and his
usual traffic flow was kept quite busy.
We all look forward to Fenland 2007 and
of course the upcoming Tiger Trophy.
Patrick Margetson-Rushmore, CD |
