CD's Report
Ok, let’s kick off with a little quiz. Which one of the following sentences are correct? Gliding is for old farts who don’t play golf; Glider aerobatics is cheaper than power; Glider sequences are sedate and less dynamic than power sequences. I think you can see where I’m going with this – none of the above are true, except I don’t know if any of the competitors at the Saltby Nationals play golf or not, but boy could they fly!

Wednesday evening in the Buckminster Gliding Clubs' recently refurbished clubhouse, and the contenders were gathered poised and eager to battle the gladiator that stood before them – the flip chart!! Figure selection for the unknowns is not for the faint hearted and inevitably a few figures were slain along the way, but by curry time we had the unlimited figures in the bag, or so we thought. It turned out that two of DJ Gibbs figures were repeats and would have to be replaced. "No problem ..." as he answered his mobile and gave us his alternatives over the phone. You’ll have to ask DJ what he was doing at this time, but I would bet it’s a first.

Thursdays weather forecast was unfortunately accurate. This allowed us to select the advanced unknown figures, and for Chief Judge Nick B to dash off and have a tooth extracted – another first?? We lost the whole day to the visible moisture.

Friday started with more bad news - one of Salby's two tugs had a binding elevator and was out of action. That left ‘Pilot’ magazine’s (other aviation publications are available) Dave Unwin as our sole tuggy, and a great job he did too, hauling our entire field through their known sequences from late morning 'till after sunset without a murmur. I bet he slept well... Peter Sharphouse was now leading the Sports class by a country chunk while the ever smiling George Rizk headed up the Intermediate bunch. Gliding stalwart Paul Conran was the leader in the clubhouse at Unlimited, but at Advanced the guy at the top of the tree was Robert ‘Robbie’ Rizk. Personally, I can’t remember what I did or achieved when I was 14 years old, but I suspect this young man will not forget his 14th year, for as the youngest ever pilot to be granted a licence he was leading the pack after the Knowns. Could he hang on to his lead?

Saturday morning: Bad news – it’s cloudy; Good news – George will do a cloud base check in his helicopter with yours truly beside him; Bad news – cloud base 3,300ft; Good news – Gransden Lodge will lend us a tug and pilot for a sizeable part of the day; Bad news – we have to fly split sequences, all day. Without that second tug we would have been stuffed. Thanks again Gransden. David Aherne joined us and flew a very punchy Beginners programme, but in the other classes, the lead stayed the same going into Sunday and the Unknowns, the sequence that some say separates the men from the boys but, at this event, I’m not sure that was at all appropriate.

Sunday and the weather was good. Splits saw the Unlimited class finished off, with Paul claiming the Gold and the title of National champion at Unlimited. The rest all flew full, non-split sequences, albeit with only one tow plane. Sports was still dominated by Peter S, despite his omission of one figure. Intermediate leader George Rizk was sure he would blow his lead as quarter-clovers were not one of his favourite manoeuvres, but he nailed them and held pole position. Advanced class was a fierce battle with four young pilots all desperate to beat each other; at the chequered flag it was Robbie who kept his nose ahead of his team mates, with the top five all scoring north of 70%. With the World Championships just around the corner, our British team are fine shape to represent their country. Good luck gentlemen.

A lot of expensive training must have gone into producing the highly dynamic and exciting sequences that we were treated to. As you only get a precious few minutes aerobatic time before the broccoli looks like trees again, training costs are effectively somewhere between £800-£900 per hour.

Thanks to all who helped make this event happen. To CJ Nick Buckenham, his Judges (including international ace Stanislav Bazjik specially over for the event from the Czech Republic) and Assistants ... flying pairs of split sequences is quite a paperwork juggling exercise; to the very hard working tuggies and all at the clubhouse who kept us well fed and watered; to Saltby boss-man Stuart for his very professional Flight Directorship, and to Kathryn Clark who gave up her weekend to step into the role of Scorer. Personally, I had a superb weekend with the friendliest bunch of people you could ever wish to meet, with not one old fart to be seen for miles.