The Mazda Standard and Intermediate Nationals 2009

CD's Report
The 11^th running of the BAeA's Standard and Intermediate National Championships at Peterborough Conington collected an important name change this year, the event being the first to benefit overtly from Mazda's interest in the sport of competition aerobatics as a source of promotion material for their UK vehicle operation. Indeed their UK Media Director Graeme Fudge, a BAeA competitor of no mean ability, was not only on-hand but trying as hard as any Standard pilot in the chase for the 2009 title, his presence an easy target during the first briefing for those keen to ensure that the sponsor got just the same treatment from the judges as they and their colleagues. In the Intermediate class no less than 23 competitors were on hand to chase the gongs, and clearly whoever managed to bag the crown in each class would have to fight hard for the privilege. To put some icing on the cake this year we also had the beautiful Air Squadron Trophy to dispense via an Intermediate Apprentices sequence, and even the promise of an Air Squadron founder member to award the trophies to the winners.

Before the Thursday briefing of course the weather looked pretty good, but inevitably those little bubbly Cu's got going as the sun raised the energy level and an hour went by after Duncan Cumberlidge's abortive first check on the cloud-base. Soon enough however it all came together and, by dint of the usual Conington fast-track sequence rate plus an extra hour's flying time at the end of the day begged from airfield operator Julie Churchill, at the close of business on day one we had two Standard and one Intermediate sequence in the bag. In the former the initial lead in the Known set by Simon Barnard over Emily Todd and Graeme Fudge had been upset by Graeme's storming first Unknown and an on-form Richard Welch, all in Pitts's of one kind or another, whilst at Intermediate David Jenkins' Laser was narrowly heading the Pitts S1 pair of Charlie Kimbell and Peter Rounce.

And then the weather man took over, and Friday disappeared in a drizzly mix of the sort of stuff we just don't do sequences in. So - what to do? On hand of course was the core management team from the upcoming Unlimited World Championships destined for late August at Silverstone, so an interesting hour or so was spent hearing from WAC-Contest Director Steve Green, Flight Director Alan Cassidy and yours truly about just how we expect to run some of the key tasks at this major event. Apart from our outrageous oversize DayGlo orange box markers that, we understand, are clearly visible from flight-level 150, of most interest is the first aerobatic contest outing for Qinetic's extraordinary radar/optical tracking system that we'll use to closely monitor the exact location of each aeroplane throughout it's flight, thus for the first time supplanting the usual multiple sets of Mk.1 eyeballs with a truly 21st century piece of kit to record the "Outs" as they happen. A recent trial at White Waltham having shown great promise, the BAeA is looking to show the world just how this should be done. We shall see. The real focal point of this day however eventually arrived in the form of the Great Curry Eating Affair at the local Spiceland Indian restaurant. Did the King win again? So they say....

All to play for on Saturday then, for which the forecasters were none to convincing. Well, what do they know anyway .... Luke Goddard had a good look at 0900, but only 2,300ft was the answer. Just an hour later however the story was sufficiently different  for us to get on with the show, and thereafter it developed into one of those glorious summer days we've seen all too few of this year. Although with the middle day trashed one sequence at each level had to go, we packed in enough of the good stuff to make both championships final. Having lost the original time-slot for the Intermediate Free, it seemed to us that the right solution was to bin this 'known' sequence in favour of the first Unknown so as to present the stiffest possible test to the upper class. Smiles all round ... and just a bit of real concern from those currently at the head of the queue. This particular sequence turned out to be an extremely deft piece of design, requiring start and end moments with inverted wing-rocks and in between presenting a number of elegant traps for the insufficiently prepared. David-J certainly found the time to insert something that shouldn't have been there, Michael Pickin redeemed himself with a fine performance to banish the memory of his earlier errors, Ben Thompson began to show us how well he expects to fly his newly acquired Extra-230 share, and the ever hard-working Marco Kalweit managed a one-place-higher flight into third slot for this sequence.

By dint of clinging to a good enough third place in the second Standard Unknown it was a beaming Emily Todd who rose to the top of the Standard Champions order, whilst Mazda man Graeme somehow held Richard Welch back in third place by the incredibly small margin of 0.11 marks or one hundredth of a percent. The doubters were duly silenced, just how close can these things be! When the two sequences were combined at Intermediate it was that man Marco from Germany who had the highest score and took the gold medal, but of course the UK Champ must be a Brit and so we had Ben Thompson whooping for joy with the BAeA plate and a more than relieved David Jenkins just making it into third place ahead of a very on-form Andrew Holman-West in his Yak-50.

And so to the final event of the contest, the Intermediate Apprentices sequence that would determine the new owner for the Air Squadron Trophy. This significant piece of precious metal has been looked after by many well-known BAeA pilots over the years, a certain Richard Pickin being the 1984 winner in his Pitts S1. This year's hopefuls included son Michael in Richards CAP-232, together with 12 other pilots who fancied their chances in the curious neo-Aresti system that some say they don't like ... but the post-flight grins say otherwise. Two smokey aeroplanes and eleven without took it in turn to present their bit for the audience, the judges this time doing their job from beside the Conington buildings so that we were all centre-stage for the performance. On hand just in time to view the flying was the Air Squadron's first secretary James Baring, who in due course was able to present the beautiful gold salver to a beaming Michael P whilst Richard P looked on with pride. Who says we aren't a family show!

In another probable first, certainly very unusual at BAeA events, both Mazda and the Air Squadron had offered cash prizes for the medal winners in each of these three contests. In the event however the cheque books were not up to the speed of the results calculations, and so for each of the hard working pilots on the notional podium the financial reward due will be on it's way to you in a few days. In Mazda's case this is in addition to the assistance the BAeA is receiving to underpin the cash bursaries awarded to selected pilots who move up to the 'next' level for their championship entries, and marks another important step in the Associations efforts to bring classical aerobatic competition flying firmly into the public arena.

As usual the Conington staff were superb, the judges endured their arduous work graciously, JB made the results service appear too easy, and for the 11^th time here I just enjoyed myself. Rock on Silverstone .....
Nick Buckenham
Contest Director