CD's
Report
 It's not often that we venture outside the box, so to speak, but after the
Tiger Trophy last year - when the head-to-head between the usual power
brigade and some invited glider peeps at this normally frenetic power
competition didn't quite gell as we had hoped - a bright idea from Jen-B led
quickly to this new event, which I can best describe as a sort of
end-of-term Team face-off between the silent'ish and definitely noisy
branches of our sport. Of course it takes a few other
 critical elements to
come together ... enthusiastic sponsor Richard Morgan from ATSI for one, a
lovely new trophy from gliding instructor Peter Baldwin at Lasham for
another, and the mouth-watering airfield that Lasham has to offer as the
icing on the cake.The format was to
take the high-scorers from both the glider and power nationals, and pit
pairs of pilots against each other in a match-point series of flights that
would be judged on a per-flight percentage basis so in each case just one pilot would
win a point for his/her team, the other going empty handed. Of course this
is very
 different from the usual process, so for once
that unusual thing Team Spirit abounded
as the opposite camps set out with considerable energy to grab the initiative.
The plan was - practice Friday, do it
Saturday, add Sunday if necessary. Friday was just great, and full of hope we ..... spent the first
couple of Saturday hours lamenting a murky cloud-base that oh-so-slowly
wandered up to reach the necessary 2,500ft so we could split the glider sequences and get
on with the job. Randal kicked-off with a splendid near 77% flight for the
power crazies, Mark Erlund stirred the Lunak in two hops to start-up the
glider sports
 brigade, and whilst the power team could
continue to manage complete
sequences the gliders were mostly denied the 4,000ft they wanted, and
through the splits it took
a while for a clear picture to emerge. Well .... clearly a glider can
be driven up into the high-scoring echelons, but the well established
training sessions that form such an essential element of success in the
power fraternity became the major influence - and whilst a complete rout was
stopped dead in it's tracks through Paul Barker's superb intermediate known sequence
in the Swift, it
did get a bit one-sided. Unfortunately the weather also refused to play
ball, the mid-afternoon blue declining gently into a familiar soggy haze
well below the box-top and, despite the sterling efforts of glider launch-man
Dick Happs, a chilly sunset intervened and we had
 to close the shop with just
four flights to go. So - an
excellent evening was enjoyed by most in Lasham's splendid cafeteria,
although some of the power team had melted into the gloom before home
airfields closed their doors
for the night. As to Sunday .... it was unfortunately more of the same, only
worse. That high pressure area we thought would do us some good just dumped
tons of slightly colder air onto Lasham's grassy hill, and reluctantly the
final flights were abandoned shortly after noon. To balance the structure
the power team had to drop four matching scores, but the writing was already
on the wall and it was the with-engine tribe that scooped the match and most
of the medals. With Derek Piggott's presence unfortunately curtailed to just
the Saturday it was left to Richard Morgan to dish out a fine array of tasty
prizes and medals to the rightful recipients, and of course the beautiful
new Peter Baldwin Aerobatic Trophy which will be held on behalf of the Power Team by
Randal Hockey until the next time.
And oh yes, there certainly will be a next time, the unanimous view being
that this is a terrific format for the final "do" of the year. A great vote
of thanks to our hosts the Lasham Gliding Community, Steve Green's judges
and assistants, JB's twinkling fingers on the keyboard, the ever
enthusiastic Richard Morgan and most welcome trophy provider Peter Baldwin.
We shall return, and in between .... I guess it's all hands to the pumps in
glider training land, we do sense that sweet revenge might feature in their
plans.
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