BAeA Open Beginners Day No 1 - 2012

CD's Report

Now we are 3 (or is it 4). Well actually it was 2! On Sunday there were 3 entrants but on Monday Nick Heard joined in to make it 4. Then his T67 went tech and by the time I turned up at Sleap on Friday, another had dropped out, unfortunately not actually telling us, to make it 2. Then I was introduced to Bob Pooler. He has a little cadre of tyro aerobatic pilots at Sleap that he tried to bully, sorry persuade to join in.
 

By briefing on Saturday we were 4 again, although Ian Ligertwood had never actually flown any aerobatics before. Good on you Bob. Some BAeA members also arrived on Saturday morning to help out, so chief judge Brian and scorer Ian roped them in to do some judge training as well, making even more sense out of the day. A very welcome sight was Leif Cuplin. I’d brought my camera but I could never really do justice with a box brownie. Here we had the pro.

Briefing over, Brian remarked that he had never known Sleap not catch someone out. Always a pilot will fly off heading in the box. Little did we know that this would be on our 1st flight of the day, not with his sequence, but with his 1500’ box flight! A first I think, but not your only 1st of the day Martin.

Weather, of course, played its part. The day was forecast showers and the cloud base restriction had been emphasised. Antoine, our second pilot to go played to the rules, and as his practice area had a cloud base of 2500’, he dutifully returned to the airfield after playtime. Good decision Antoine. Unfortunately, he failed to investigate the box when he got back. We had an enormous hole over Sleap, with no cloud anywhere near, which of course was deteriorating by the time he was on the ground and we could chat about it. So Bob took Ian Ligertwood off for some first time aerobatics, eventually returning to the box to carry out a fantastic sequence for a first timer, BUT who was flying? Bobs silly grin gave the game away!

With all the check rides and training flights over, we were left with a relatively good weather window to complete the competition. Bob, sorry, Ian decided not to fly the comp which left young Alex, Antoine and Martin to fight it out, all solo which was good. Some very good flying was demonstrated and all 3 should now be looking at stretching themselves at Standard level. This is where our new life blood comes from and well done to Martin who won with a very good mid 70’s score.

I’d like to thank all the pilots for competing. You did really well under typical 2012 conditions. Thanks to our supporters Paul, Aidan and Toddy. Paul and Aidan I think got more out of this than they expected suddenly realising many of the things judges actually look at.

Thanks to Leif for such great pictures. Thanks to Bob Pooler for the use of his aeroplane, and for his support and enthusiasm for all things aerobatic, so actually enabling the pilots to compete. Thanks to Ian Scott our scorer, judge tutor, airfield liaison who gave new meaning to the term “multitasking”. Thanks to Brian our chief judge, giving such a lot of help and feed back to our pilots. And finally, thanks to the airfield who are always so positive and helpful about our visits to their overhead.

John Scott

Contest Director

Contest Results  BAeA Open Beginners Day No 1, Sleap Aerodrome, 4th August Ranked by scores      Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Known #2 Totals O/all %  1 Martin Bromiley Slingsby T67M G-BUUK 515.38 515.38 75.791  2 Alex Cartwright Slingsby T67M G-BUUK 487.37 487.37 71.672  3 Antoine Schlijper Slingsby T67M G-BUUK 434.56 434.56 63.906 Contest Director: John Scott, Contest Chief Judge: Brian McCartney, Scoring Director: Ian Scott, Judges: Brian McCartney, Aidan Smith, Paul Stanley, Steve Todd. Judges Assistants: Julie Lawley, Ian Scott.  FairPlay System Aerobatic Contest Results Organiser, Version 3.1 Build 14-07-12, with FairPlay Scoring System