The Gunpowder Trophy - 2013
Contest Director's Report
If, as the saying goes, “a good landing is one where it’s possible to re-use the aircraft afterwards”, then unfortunately the very first landing of the day at Leicester on Saturday morning didn’t quite qualify. In this case we weren’t actually able to re-use runway 28 either, at least until the efforts of a number of volunteers and fire crew had managed to chaperone the remains of a very pretty Pitts back to a maintenance hangar. Unfortunately, such is aviation. No-one was hurt and chaos was averted thanks to the availability of an alternative runway for the inbound competition pilots, albeit one which took departing traffic straight through our carefully prepared and risk-assessed aerobatic box …

The early morning drama actually only cost us an hour and after a 10.30 briefing we were able to start flying at 11.30 with Francesco Fullin in G-EEEK kicking off the Beginners’ contest. For once the weather was playing ball and whilst the prevailing scattered cumulous was probably a little below our 3,400’ target, the box was centred in a large hole. With everyone working hard to maintain the strike rate and minimise turnaround time we had the 6 beginners’ flights completed a mere 45 minutes later, with Antonio Merola taking the gold in Adrian’s Extra 200 on a very creditable score of 73.8%.

We had briefed to run the Standard contest straight after Beginners to try and make up some lost time, so at 11.15 Antoine Schlijper took to the air to mark the beginning of the Gunpowder Trophy itself. By now the cloud had lifted and the weather didn’t trouble us for the rest of the day. Remarkably, and thanks primarily to the pilots being organised, by 1.30pm the 9 standard known flights were complete and we were back on schedule. All this and a box infringement by a gloriously yellow, and equally unwelcome, visiting Miles Magister to boot!

What I saw of the flying indicates to me that the quality of preparation and flying has risen significantly in recent years both at Standard and Beginner level, which is reflected in the high scores.

After a short break for the judges Farrell McGee was first up for the Intermediate Free programme. His selection of figures (including a negative flick off the top of a half loop and a tail slide with two of four down, provided some welcome entertainment for those of us watching and didn’t actually score too badly either. The top four places in the free programme, however, were very tightly bunched with only 18 points (less than 1%) separating all four and Phil Massetti at the head of the pack.

By this point we had arrived in competition no man’s land, where at our current run rate it would have been possible to complete the entire competition in one day, but only if we could twist some arms in the tower and with the fire crew to arrange some late coverage. After speaking with the Intermediate pilots, however, it was decided to target the completion of the Standard competition during the afternoon and fly the Intermediate Unknown on the Sunday morning, with any spare time we had being used to fly another “fun” unknown sequence for those standard pilots up to the challenge.

And so it was. With the pressure off the scheduling became a bit more relaxed and the Gunpowder was completed by late afternoon. With an outstanding unknown flight scoring nearly 85 per cent Chris Sills took the trophy, followed closely by Neil Parkinson and Iain Thompson.

Happily, the weather on Sunday morning was equally kind, with flying starting on schedule at 10.15 and John Scott first in the air. A hard zero by Phil Massetti (keyholes and sharks teeth are different, Phil) put him out of the running, leaving Chris Brook, John Scott and Lauren Richardson to fight it out between them. Chris ultimately prevailed by what must be one of the narrowest margins ever; 0.07% ahead of John Scott, or less than 3 points out of nearly 3,000. Farrell, who’d now crept into the top three, took the bronze a mere 5 point behind John with Lauren in 4th place by an equally close margin. Also worthy of mention is that the unknown programme was actually won by Paul Elvidge - a real achievement given the hardware that his T67 was up against.

That left just the 5 standard level pilots flying the Fun Unknown program to battle it out for supremacy in a slightly more challenging Unknown sequence. With a sense of déjà vu Chris Sills claimed his second victory in a row, with Mark Amey in second place.

Overall an excellent weekend of flying, and our thanks go out in particular to Brian McCartney and his dedicated and newly bronzed team of judges and assistants and to Ian Scott, our unflappable Scoring Director and Registrar. Many thanks also to Leicester aerodrome and their team, led by David Shutter, who were extremely accommodating for the entire weekend.
 Beginners Class
 The Gunpowder Trophy, Leicester, 10th-11th August

Ranked by scores    

 Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Known Totals O/all %
 1 Antonio Merola Extra 200 G-EEEK 509.24 509.24 73.802
 2 Steve Blakey Pitts S-1C G-BOZS 497.19 497.19 72.056
 3 Francesco Fullin Extra 200 G-EEEK 489.93 489.93 71.005
 4 Jon Millson Extra 200 G-GLOC 460.81 460.81 66.785
 5 Martin Sims Pitts S-1C G-BUWJ 363.17 363.17 52.633
 6 Peter Jackson Cessna 150A G-BCKU 303.44 303.44 43.977
Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Brian McCartney, Scoring Director: Ian Scott. Judges: Brian McCartney, Eric Marsh, Julie Wood, John Royce. Judges Assistants: Sarah Hardy, Julie Lawley, John Vize, Emma Sik.
 FairPlay System

Aerobatic Contest Results Organiser, Version 3.2 Build 29-07-13, with FairPlay Scoring System 
 The Gunpowder Trophy 2013
 The Gunpowder Trophy, Leicester, 10th-11th August

Ranked by scores    

 Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Known  Unknown  Totals O/all %
 1 Chris Sills Laser 230 G-CBHR 1073.76 907.76 1981.52 81.544
 2 Neil Parkinson Pitts S-1S G-FORZ 1088.59 855.08 1943.67 79.986
 3 Iain Thompson Pitts S-1S G-BPDV 1059.51 867.60 1927.11 79.305
 4 Marc Amey Pitts S-1F G-BTTR 1056.59 857.81 1914.40 78.782
 5 David Lloyd Extra 230 G-CBUA 1038.07 777.55 1815.63 74.717
 6 David Brown Extra 200 G-EEEK 990.64 815.81 1806.45 74.340
 7 Aidan Smith Slingsby T-67M G-BUUK 998.55 786.41 1784.95 73.455
 H/C Francesco Fullin Extra 200 G-EEEK 973.23 772.17 1745.40 71.827
 8 Antoine Schlijper Slingsby T-67M G-BUUK 888.66 739.60 1628.26 67.007
Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Brian McCartney, Scoring Director: Ian Scott. Judges: Brian McCartney, Eric Marsh, John Vize, John Royce. Judges Assistants: Sarah Hardy, Julie Wood, Julie Lawley, Emma Sik.
 FairPlay System

Aerobatic Contest Results Organiser, Version 3.2 Build 29-07-13, with FairPlay Scoring System 
 Intermediate Combined Finals
 The Gunpowder Trophy, Leicester, 10th-11th August

Ranked by scores    

 Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Free  Unknown  Totals O/all %
 1 Chris Brook Pitts S-2A G-BTTR 1539.16 1356.39 2895.55 75.999
 2 John Scott CAP-10B G-BXRA 1554.68 1338.23 2892.90 75.929
 3 Farrell McGee Edge 360 G-IIFM 1491.76 1396.27 2888.03 75.801
 4 Lauren Richardson Pitts S-1S G-BKDR 1554.59 1327.69 2882.28 75.650
 5 Paul Elvidge T-67M G-BKTZ 1449.56 1397.08 2846.64 74.715
 6 Peter Rounce Pitts S-1T N-697RB 1424.92 1395.06 2819.98 74.015
 7 Phil Masetti Laser 230 G-CBHR 1558.38 1177.61 2735.99 71.811
Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Brian McCartney, Scoring Director: Ian Scott. Judges: Brian McCartney, Eric Marsh, Julie Wood, John Royce. Judges Assistants: Sarah Hardy, Julie Lawley, John Vize, Emma Sik.
 FairPlay System

Aerobatic Contest Results Organiser, Version 3.2 Build 29-07-13, with FairPlay Scoring System 
 The Leicester Standard 'Fun' Sequence
 The Gunpowder Trophy, Leicester, 10th-11th August

Ranked by scores    

 Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Unknown Totals O/all %
 1 Chris Sills Laser 230 G-CBHR 980.32 980.32 82.380
 2 Marc Amey Pitts S-1F G-BTTR 954.92 954.92 80.245
 3 Iain Thompson Pitts S-1S G-BPDV 952.17 952.17 80.014
 4 David Brown Extra 200 G-EEEK 938.42 938.42 78.859
 H/C Antonio Merola Extra 200 G-EEEK 747.09 747.09 62.781
Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Brian McCartney, Scoring Director: Ian Scott. Judges: Brian McCartney, Eric Marsh, John Vize, John Royce. Judges Assistants: Sarah Hardy, Julie Wood, Julie Lawley, Emma Sik.
 FairPlay System

Aerobatic Contest Results Organiser, Version 3.2 Build 29-07-13, with FairPlay Scoring System 
 

 

 
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