The Mazda Advanced and Unlimited Nationals 2010

The Mazda Advanced and Unlimited British National Championships were scheduled for mid-July this year, earlier in the season than usual, to accommodate the timing of the World Advanced and the European

Unlimited Aerobatic Championships which are being run during August and September. Unfortunately, the weather at Sywell seemed more fitting to mid-winter than mid-summer and three of the four scheduled flying days were lost to persistent low cloud and very strong winds as a complex weather system confounded the weather forecasters and frustrated pilots and organisers alike. In the end, the contest flying was compressed into a flurry of activity on Saturday, with just enough time available to complete two sequences for each pilot at both

Advanced and Unlimited levels. Thursday and Friday were spent waiting for the weather to become flyable, during which time the pilots proposed figures for the two Unknown Sequences that had been scheduled for the event. The first of these is a Free Unknown, which means that each competitor can take the proposed figures, add between 1 and 4 linking figures and arrange them into a sequence that suits their own aircraft and flying style. Five Advanced and two Unlimited sequences were designed by the pilots and it would be interesting to see how well each sequence worked in the contest.

The weather on Saturday became flyable mid-morning and the decision was taken to cancel the Q-Programme and start with the Free Programme instead. Advanced were up first and Nick Wakefield (Pitts S1T) headed the results, posting an impressive score of 78.99%, throwing the gauntlet down to his rivals, led by Alan Cassidy also flying a Pitts S1T with 77.6% and John Askew (Cap 232) scoring 74.8%. Three other pilots, Gary Ferriman (Extra 230), Marco Kalweit (Pitts S2C) and Michael Pickin (Cap 232) also achieved 70% plus scores, making this a high quality, closely fought contest.

The Unlimited Free saw four pilots competing to win the National title and Mark Jefferies led the way in his Extra 300SC posting a score of 77.6%, giving him a significant lead over the current National Champion,

Gerald Cooper (73.2%; Cap 232), Tom Cassells (71.4%; Cap 232) and Nick Onn (67.8%; Sukhoi 26M). The pilots had compiled a very testing series of figures for the Free Unknown sequence, so there was a good opportunity to close the gap to Mark in the next programme.

After a short lunch break the judges were back on the line by 1500 and the Advanced Free Unknown began. Alan Cassidy managed to negotiate the sequence without zeroing any figures and impressed the judges the most to post a score of 73.5% for the Unknown. Nick Wakefield also flew a clean sequence, but scored 3% less than Alan. Marco Kalweit held his nerve to secure third place in the Unknown, followed by Ron Allan (Pitts S2B) and Michael Pickin. The combined results of the two sequences flown placed Marco third, Nick second and made Alan Cassidy the Mazda British National Champion at Advanced level for 2010.

The Unlimited Free Unknown proved to be a very challenging sequence, but the decisive moment came when Mark collected a Hard Zero for putting an incorrect roll combination at the top of a square loop. His rivals all

flew the sequence without zeros, with Gerald posting the best score for the Free Unknown (71.9%), followed by Tom (68.3%) and Nick (63.1%). When the scores were aggregated across the two sequences flown, Tom was in third place, with Mark only very slightly ahead in second place and Gerald Cooper winning to retain the trophy and the title Mazda British National Champion at Unlimited level for 2010.

The weather on Sunday was unsuitable for contest flights, so Jeff Bell (ATC Manager, Sywell Aerodrome) presented the medals and trophies to the winners. Gerald Cooper took home the Neil Williams trophy and Alan Cassidy became the first winner of a wonderful new trophy created for the Advanced National Championship by Julian Murfitt.

Sywell is an excellent venue for a contest and Jeff Bell, his staff in ATC and Mick at the pumps worked very hard on Saturday to help us get as much flying done as possible while the weather was flyable. It would have been impossible to get the contest finished without their support and we are very grateful for their

help. The staff at the Aviator Hotel and the Pilots’ Mess were friendly and kept all of the participants supplied with lots of tea, coffee and food while we were waiting for the weather to clear.

Graham Hill’s judging team worked very hard on Saturday to get two sequences complete for all of the competitors within one day. Thanks are due to all those who judged, called, scribed and helped in other ways on the judging line. We were very pleased to welcome the International Judges Richard and Lucas Ponizil from the Czech Republic to the judging line for the Nationals and we hope we will see them in the UK again soon. Jen Buckenham was registrar and scorer for the contest, prepared all of the paperwork needed for the contest ahead of the event and kept everything organised despite many, many changes to the flying orders every day – thank you Jen. The weather system was so complex that all of the official forecasts published each day of the contest were wrong, but Peter Macintosh was able to get more accurate information from his

military forecasters and his help with supplying met information was very much appreciated. Richard Pickin was probably the most active pilot during the weekend, having volunteered to make weather flights to assess cloudbase and wind conditions, which was appreciated. Graham Hill, Phil Atley, Brian McCartney and Jen helped to layout the box markers.

I would also like to thank the pilots for their patience and co-operation during the competition. The weather conditions were very frustrating and it was disappointing not to be able to fly more during the contest, but when the weather was flyable it was very impressive to see how efficiently the pilots operated, so that maximum use was made of the opportunity.

Many of the pilots who flew at Sywell are flying for Team Mazda UK soon at the World and European Championships and I wish all of them safe and successful contests.