At the 11:30 kick-off time on Thursday Elise Mason found rather less Cu than she expected drifting through the box whilst flying the lines for the benefit of Chief Judge Alan Cassidy's team, his judiciary banished this year to a handy spot in the countryside just over a kilometre south of Conington's 28/10 runway windsock. This arrangement gave pilots the benefit of a major runway for the 'far' edge of the box and a railway-line next to the east side but 10° or so out of kilter, and not a lot else. It's the same for everyone however, so no-one could claim to be particularly disadvantaged. By the time the knowns at both levels had been despatched Charlie Kimbell headed the standard queue and Neil Bigrigg the intermediates, both however harbouring few doubts about how hard it was going to be to maintain their status. On potentially weather-interrupted days like this one at airfields in the Fens you are always in no doubt just where the CB's are, and eventually our luck ran out when one of the many black lumps marching around the countryside got us .... but we were quickly back up there again to finish our opening day, leaving just half a dozen standard pilots remaining to fly their first unknown.

The middle day was just "the best" - a consistently high cloud-base let everyone get on with the job, while largely preventing too many boiled faces amongst the judges and scribes. By the end of the second round of sequences Charlie-K had Richard Verrall, Ed Yard and John Wicks pushing very hard to spoil the order, whilst intermediates Luke Goddard, David Cowden and Richard Buchan put in their very best Free sequences attempting - as yet unsuccessfully - to upset Neil's master plan. The original schedule had both levels running their final acts on the Saturday, but with RAF Brize Norton's TAF for the next day looking decidedly dodgy your CD thought it best to crack-on to get at least the standard affair completely resolved before the weather decided otherwise. With our excellent strike rate one more intermediate and the two remaining standard sequences took us until just ten minutes past a slightly bent 6pm deadline, so in effect even the intermediate champion could be declared if no more flying was possible.

For First Officer Kimbell unfortunately the opposition had found the time to more than draw level, delighted Extra-300L driver Richard Verrall triumphing by the astonishingly small margin of little over a quarter of a point (in over four thousand!) from Ed Yard's Pitts S-2A, with John Wicks and his CAP-10 just behind. In fact these three and Randal Hockey each won a sequence, the top five all recording fine performances at over 70%.

At this stage Luke Goddard led the inters by a little over one percent, but Paul Tomlinson was back on form and raring to go .... Whilst some of the standard pilots ran for home against the declining weather the rest of us took up temporary residence at Sawtry's local curry emporium - and very good it was too. It was said by many that the evening's clear champion was Ed Harding, but one shouldn't rely on evidence after it's been eaten, I say .....

Day three probably started well at about 05:00, but by 09:45 and with a pretty stiff wind at almost 90° from the previous two days dictating reversion to last year's box layout the low scud started to drive through and Conington's restaurant was clearly a better place to be than outside. However when John Smith's venerable Stampe departed following a somewhat lengthy wing-walking session down to the 16 threshold he unexpectedly brought news of a 2,500ft cloud-base, and the show was rapidly re-assembled. With an allowed break in force the remaining intermediate unknown was quickly despatched, and most then elected to give the BAeA's own Apprentices quasi-Aresti format a bash for the lovely Air Squadron Trophy. Job done.

And who was the person of the day? Without a doubt Paul T-Tomlinson got all his (curried?) beans in a row, and not only put in a superb unknown to leap to the front of the queue and carry off the intermediate Champions crown but even trounced the rest at wiggly stall-turns and back-to-back opposition half barrel-rolls too to bag the beautiful gold gravy-boat that is the Air Squadron Trophy. And so we finished almost ahead of time, and able to make a distinctly unusual leisurely exit. I've been happily running this show for quite a few years, but this one just has to be the best so far. Out of interest this nationals now has 1,052 flights logged on this web since the 1997 show, the previous biggest being 131 in 2002. Quite a record.

It goes almost without saying that the Peterborough Conington staff and their delightful airfield helped to make this year's event another resounding success, and you may be assured that we'll be back there soon negotiating for the 2008 championships. To the judging and scribing team, our much-loved scorer, PetCon's owners and admin staff, radio chaps, bar team and chef, and anyone else I've not included - a thousand thanks is undoubtedly on offer from the BAeA's pilots for letting them all strut their stuff. As for me, I'm just delighted to be part of such a big bag-full of serious enjoyment. Long may it last.

Nick Buckenham, Contest Director