Forbearance, that's the word. Those of us who have been playing this funny old game for a year or ten (or twenty!) can, I suppose, look back to contests of yore when the weather was really bad and we sat around for four days with not a single flight taking place or those odd glorious moments when it was fabulously blue all day. "Ah yes, do you remember Wickenby, back in '97?" we say to each other. Yes, I do! It'll happen again, one day, but not last weekend it didn't.
 

I don't think that Compton Abbas '13 is going to stick in many people's memories but we just might have actually done something significant this weekend - or maybe not. Read on.
 

The forecast was such that the optimists thought we might get a contest out of the weekend. Sadly, Friday morning brought a crop of cancellations from people who were either stuck at base or wouldn't be able to get home again. Thus we had no Beginners, potentially four at Intermediate for the Air Squadron Trophy and eight for the Advanced Don Henry. A clearance came through late on Friday afternoon to enable the Advanced Guard to launch for and complete their Known. Drawing back the curtains in the digs in Shaftesbury at 0600 on Saturday morning revealed a very pleasant prospect; some blue sky and a little cumulus. The Management at Compton Abbas had generously allowed arrivals from 0731 which enabled those who couldn't arrive on Friday to make the 0800 briefing. Sadly, as so often happens, by the time first flight arrived at 0900, the cloud had thickened and lowered to a frustrating 2,200ft. Sooo, back to the sitting around. Every now and again in the past, someone has come up with the idea of running a 'flat' sequence to cope with this situation, but as far as I am aware, no-one has actually run a competition programme on this basis. The difference, perhaps, this weekend, was that the sequence to be replaced was the Apprentices, slightly out of the norm anyway. A simple sequence was designed by the Chief Judge, upon which pilots could add embellishments (or not) and which would fit under the prevailing cloudbase. A briefing discussed the concept and was followed by a BAeA Management discussion on the safety aspects of launching into something that hadn't been carefully thought through beforehand; the sequence was modified as a result. The four pilots involved agreed with the plan, although there was a feeling that the Apprentices had been practiced and this had not and that the sequence was simplistic - I guess an inevitability from a 'flat' sequence.
 

Eventually, the Intermediates launched under what had now become a 2,800ft cloudbase - sufficient in fact to allow the original programme. However, one of the outcomes of the safety analysis was that once a change had been made, it should remain in place. Last-minute change is where safety can be seriously eroded. All was well, in the end. An attempt was made to fly the Advanced Unknown but the cloud subsided again and a halt was called to proceedings at 1800, in time to allow the prizegiving and most people to go home.
 

So we had ourselves a competition. Mark Coreth from the Air Squadron had joined us for the day and kindly agreed to present the awards, including the very generous cheques which accompany the Air Squadron Trophy. We are extremely grateful for the continued support for this event that we enjoy from the Air Squadron.
 

No doubt the debate about 'flat' sequences will now become re-energised, I hope with more output than it has in the past. We'll see!