The Tiger Trophy - 2009

The weather was also a major factor in determining the size of the field on the day, as bad Friday 'actuals' all over the place meant that the original field of 36 was reduced to 21. Despite a general improvement late on Friday, few pilots were able to get to Sherburn before the early dash Saturday morning.

Friday's Beginners event was cancelled at the 13.00 briefing, but the CD held a fairly detailed planning and tactics briefing for the four entrants who had driven to the field despite the prevailing 'met. We decided then to try to fit in any Beginners that could be there on Saturday, after the Tiger proper.

Saturday dawned with clear skies and quite a number of aircraft dropped out of the sky onto Sherburn in time for the 8.00am briefing. Inevitably, however, the previous day's rain had to lift off the sodden turf and the consequent low cloud/drizzle prevented any flying before mid-day when wind-dummy Andy Leitch launched on what turned out to be a slightly too early weather check.

Another stab at roughly 1 o'clock saw the first Standard level contest flight successfully completed by Andy, and it was good enough for bronze among the pilots of that Category. The use of SKYC by no less than 5 Standard entrants meant that the strike rate might be quite slow, so the 3 Advanced pilots to have made it through the clag agreed to feed in at appropriate gaps in the programme while the T67 was being turned around. This undoubtedly saved some time, but also varied the task for the rather damp and chilly judging line.

There were further interruptions for two or three quite heavy showers, but after each of these the next gap was bigger and slightly brighter. The six Intermediate pilots were very prompt in getting airborne and were followed by Tom Cassells who was the only Unlimited pilot to get to Sherburn with an aeroplane and an intent to take part. Thus was the Tiger proper completed by about 4.30pm and this enabled five patient Beginners to do their thing in what were, by then, quite pleasant early evening conditions.

In the afternoon we were pleased to play host to two visitors from Spain, Castor Fantoba and Alex Moore. Castor is one of the Spanish WAC pilots while Alex is their Team Manager, and she kindly agreed to present the medals and trophies to the successful pilots at the end of what turned out to be not such a bad Saturday as we had feared.

My thanks, of course to all those who suffered on the judging line, to Jen for doing everything without a hitch and especially to Sherburn Aero Club for their excellent hospitality. Lastly, as you already have seen from the results, which I'm sure you looked at before this report, David Jenkins is now the holder of the Tiger and definitely has to fly Advanced next time...

Alan Cassidy
BAeA Contest Director