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CD's Report
Oh, Sun
wherefore art thou?
Right up until the day it seemed we had only three entries for what has now
become an annual event at the friendly Warwickshire airfield of Wellesbourne,
courtesy of On-Track Aviation. A late entry from Barry Pearson meant entries
numbered four and the decision was taken to reschedule the event solely into
Thursday rather than over two days, or as it turned out to Thursday
afternoon.
Previous days spent checking the met. office’s landlubbers’ forecast
initially showed a full day of yellow Sun images. However, typically as we
got closer to the event, the suns changed to grey clouds and moved to later
in the day, and so it proved on Thursday morning with 3km and 600’ sky
obscured. Many weather updates to competitors later resulted in the
Chairman’s Pitts being the first to arrive (after one aborted attempt)
followed by the Slingsby from Redhill (a particularly valiant effort given
the conditions) and finally the Extra to give us a full complement of
competitors and aircraft. With a seminar start around 1.30 we ran a slightly
altered programme of one flight per competitor to give practice time away
from the box and then two flights in the box with the second counting for
results.
Julian Murfitt’s ad-hoc judging team duly positioned themselves by the Cold
War icon of the Vulcan and by 5pm Victoria from On-Track was able to present
the medals. The two Pitts pilots were split by half a percent with Chris Puddy coming out on top and Barry Pearson justifying the long drive from
Eaglescott with the runner up spot. Richard Champion claimed third with a
sterling effort in his Slingsby and Clive Collision, the Extra driver, took
the fourth spot.
Thanks to all at On-Track who made us most welcome and kindly donated the
medals and to Franki and Oliver in the tower. On-Track’s seven ship PA28
close formation around the locale after the event was particularly
impressive.
David Shutter
Contest Director
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