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The Advanced European Aerobatic
Championships
Siofok-Kiliti, Hungary - 24th August to 3rd
September 2001 |
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The
BAeA
Advanced
Team
Sponsored by
Pilot Magazine |
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| Mark
Jefferies |
Laser-200 G-VILL |
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| Martin
Sandford |
CAP-20L
G-BIPO |
| Cas
Smith |
Pitts
S2B G-ICAS |
| Gary
Ferriman |
Pitts
S1S G-LITZ |
| Nick Buckenham |
Team Manager & subsequently UK Judge
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BAeA
Teams Abroad - main page |
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BAeA
Power Unlimited Team diary |
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BAeA Glider Unlimited Team diary |
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Advanced
Team Diary
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The Team (L-R)
Gary Ferriman - Pitts S1T
Nick Buckenham - UK Judge
Cas Smith - Pitts S2B
Martin Sandford - CAP-20L
Mark Jefferies - Laser-200
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Final
Results ....
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Team
Results ....
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September 2nd
The Last Word from Hungary
Lots to play for today, but by and large not for
the Brits. Just three unknown-2 flights were managed on Friday
before heavy overcast turned out the lights and the umpires pulled
stumps, and the prospect didn't look too good as the intensely
broody weather-man's view of Saturday was mostly rain showers,
with gaps in-between. We have good experience of the gap
dimensions required to get the train in motion here, so pessimism
rules. The rampant Budapest lergy has now claimed seven pilots who
have either gone home, to hospital or are just not able to fly at
all. At lunch-time yesterday Italian wag Luca Salvadori penned an
uproarious "Toilet-O-Meter" on the main-tent white
board, with national rankings in sets of gongs that looked
suspiciously like something with the lid up - and a three-level
podium of even more graphic dimensions.... the evidence is here
for all to see!
The Friday celebratory night out at a
restaurant was decimated by the same gut-rot, and whilst the
Italians and French exchanged vino and bon-viveur without too much
obvious restraint the rest of us looked like inhabitants at a
get-well farm. Of our lot Cas is undoubtedly experiencing the most
challenging time, Martin has operated strictly to Ann's advice and
looks as though he might improve one day, Gary's dour northern
humour seems to be supporting his own internal disarray, I'm
really not eating but maybe I've escaped the worst, whilst Mark is
relatively unaffected. What a bunch of $%&*\?s!!
Saturday starts a bit grey as
predicted, but with a crucial difference. When, in answer to the
usual "What time will the flying start?" question, our
CD rummaged around a bit and suggested that 09:30 or a bit later
might be appropriate, the ever positive Chief Judge Pavol Kavka
sprang into action and said that the judging line would be in
place and ready to roll at 09:00 and any delays after that would
come from an alternate source.... and - lo and behold - alacrity set in and we were indeed up and away shortly after the stated
time. And far from being drizzly the sky cleared and looked
ominously good for competition flying. Hey! Then the sun pushed
some moisture out of the ground, and the inevitable clouds began
to drift into the box. Martin's flight was OK if a little overhead
the judges, then Luca gave us a minor scare with a short (medium?)
period of indecision as to
 which way to roll the 3/4 down in
fig-3, bang over our heads. It was Gary who was initially
thwarted, the 1500ft wisps rapidly turning to clag and a full
stop. A couple of hours later it was declared 800m by Osmo's
Zlin-142 ride, a break was announced and Gary was off again. Ahhh.....
really nice flight, pity the break was taken one figure early. And
so the day continued. Cas should have gone 1st as the scoring
warm-up pilot, but somehow the Follow-Me truck was somewhere else
at the time, and by lunch-time enough flights were completed for there to be
conjecture amongst the optimists of an unknown-3. Lunch was
specially scheduled early to make a long afternoon Getting It Done,
then the caterers couldn't deliver to the new schedule.... but in
the end we
all ate, pilots flew, we judged, and at 19:15 (after a few of the
usual dodgy videos) it was done. Most of us thought that Zoltan's
flight was well ahead, but Gerard Bichet's was pretty smart and
for once Mark slipped in a "normal" performance as well.
Cas managed an immaculate one-and-a-quarter snap down in fig-1,
noticed nothing and piled in the zero's until a similarly
over-cooked roll in fig-3 unravelled him again. "Couldn't
understand why I was so low....". Nuff said!
Back to the marquee in the dark,
and to the CD's not unreasonable announcement that that was that.
In view of the virus driven depletion of the ranks and the
organisers hopes for a contest-pilot airshow on Sunday
afternoon, I guess that was always the likely decision. I'm not
too sure about the prudence of expecting show-time from a bunch of
fairly weary I Want To Go Home pilots, but we will see.
So - here's the griff:
| 2nd Unknown
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4th - Mark Jefferies, GBR
74.6%
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| 1st - Zoltan Veres, HUN 80.2%
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22nd - Gary Ferriman, GBR
66.0%
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| 2nd - Gerard Bichet, FRA
76.3%
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25th - Martin Sandford, GBR
59.0%
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| 3rd - Petr Jarocky, CZH 76.1%
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27th - Cas Smith, GBR 47.7%
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| Overall
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1st - Zoltan Veres HUN 79.08% -
European Advanced Champion 2001 (Extra 260/320)
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2nd - Gerard Bichet FRA 76.72%
(CAP-231)
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3rd - Eltonas Meleckis LIT 75.53%
(Yak-55M)
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In Teams the French have the gold, Lithuania the
silver and Czech the bronze. Italy are 4th, we are fifth.
For the Brits - Mark is 17th with
69.66%, Gary 18th with 68.04%, Martin 24th with 65.73% and Cas
29th on 58.27%.
As I write this on Sunday morning
the rain (yesterdays at last??) has driven in, and departures have
been soggily arrested. Mark was back in Bedfordshire last night, Martin
over-nighted in Linz, Gary and Cas are planning their route as we
speak. Me - a shiny Malev 737 back to LHR will do just fine
tomorrow morning. See you soon, somewhere.
Nick B
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August
31st
Late News
The first unknown is finished. Main scores overall
now are -
| 1st Zoltan Veres HUN 78.5% |
20th Gary Ferriman GBR 69.0% |
| 2nd Gerard Bichet FRA 76.9% |
21st Martin Sandford GBR 68.9% |
| 3rd Eltonas Meleckis LIT 76.5% |
22nd Mark Jefferies GBR 67.3% |
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28th Cas Smith GBR 63.2% |
More tomorrow
NHB |
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August
31st
Hello again,
At the time of my last note -
hastily constructed on Wednesday evening - things looked
reasonably bright.... what a difference a day makes! The weather
was pretty good yesterday, the judging position at the end of the
runway with the sun behind us being a real gem. Then about 6 from
the end - reverse 'Q' order and all that - along came Master
Jefferies, and I thought it all went quite well. However, there
followed a judges huddle about his spin, which was thought by one
judge to be too 'co-axial' with the horizontal flight path and
thus had a forced entry at too high a speed. To start with we were
six for and one against, the for's all 7.5's and one 8. The video
was duly wound up, and without too much bother it all went pear
shaped to six against and one (me!) for. It was really a very
marginal decision, and Marks spin was certainly no worse than
quite a few others. But the cement set, positions became
entrenched, and that was that. That little misdemeanour dropped the
lad from Gransden to 19'th, and he wasn't best pleased. A protest
was lodged, somewhat bolstered by the discovery that the in stigating
judge was referring to the CIVA glider regulations that require
the spin axis to become very close to vertical after a
half-to-one-turn. In the way of these things however the protest
reached the judging line at the end of the day in the near dark,
and with other things to get done and great pressure being applied
to get weary judges (ah!) back to their hotels it really didn't
stand much of a chance. So - the $100 was withdrawn, together with the Brit
chance of anything near a medal.
There has also been a running
battle by Chief Judge Pavol Kavka to prevent pilots from turning
at too low altitude in the box, and some 30 point penalties have
been handed out. This is an ad-hoc arrangement, not supported by
the CIVA Rulebook, so the French Team and - you guessed - young
Jefferies have been waving more dollar centuries around.... that
nearly finished in tears too, the Jury refusing to back down and
offering disqualification (per the Rules) instead. At the end of the Free then Mark is
19th, Martin is 22nd, Cas 24th and Gary 29th. Not too good.
Yesterday after lunch the first
unknown got into it's stride, and this has duly begun the
weeding-out process sorting those who can from those who talk....
It started with our one-and-a-half crossover negative spin, and
the range of "stand the aeroplane on its nose and bung
everything in the corner for a while" antics had us all quite
amused. Mark of course was about 14th to fly after his Free spin
(spin-free??) affair, and was just fine until the fig-4 three-inwards inverted
to inverted roller came along and there were four rolls in the sky. Even he
doesn't know what happened. Must have been thinking about it
though, as the push-45° // pull 5/8 loop that followed it promptly
turned into a push 5/8 loop // drive down 45° thing, and that was that. The range of names
provided afterwards are not fit for this family publication....
suffice it to say that we are now engaged in simply enjoying the
flying from somewhere around the back end of the field, and after
all the political tension of the first few days the Brits are now
a lot quieter - even demure. Well, not too demure!
The other thing that has left an indelible mark is a stomach virus
that is going the rounds - and a pretty virulent one at that.
Yesterday eleven pilots could not fly because of it, the
hot/cold/shivers/sweaty/D&V having now affected maybe half
the people here. It's a 'stayer' too, for most people lasting
three or four days. Here we all are, having a lovely time!
Today - Friday - it was pretty grey to start with, and now it's
raining. We (judges) were initially assembled in the middle of a
sunflower field, not a good position - just over the brow of the
hill, with the corner judges hard to contact and the CD out of
sight and to all intents and purposes out of mind. After ten
minutes of faffing about we made to relocate to the other side
of the box, but then the drizzle came and all has ground to a
standstill. So here we sit, in the marquee again, bashing the
usual hangar-chat and even beginning to contemplate the route
back to Blighty. Malev-610 from Ferihegy on monday morning will
do just fine for me!
See you soon,
Nick B
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August
30th
Wednesday in Magyar Country
Today was a great object lesson in
all sorts of things, but Getting The Championships Finished On
Time With Three Unknowns Done wasn't at the top of the list. To be
fair CD Mr Szabo and his Team had a hard time, the wind varying
all day from 10-12m/sec to gusting 13-15m/sec at any old altitude
you'd like. And we have to bear in mind that - at these major
events - every day necessarily starts with a gaggle more people
and a somewhat bigger rule book to cope with than ours at home, including
a very thorough Met brief with wind balloon analysis etc., then a
full box-flight and jury report, then maybe a proper warm-up pilot
... and then the first contestant, and always with
an unloved two-hour protest period at the completion of each
sequence. Today however the wind has been fairly consistently as
above on the ground, gusting maybe lots more, and probably even
more extra more at 500m. The contest direction is generally OK,
although the initial snag this morning was that to fly 330
into-wind the judges would inevitably have the sun in the
right-high box area, poor things (us), and that Just Won't Do. It
has come home to me today just how brutal we are often are to our
own judges in the UK. They get put out rather like pot plants,
regardless of the weather and squinty sun-in-the-eye potential, and are
watered and shooed around all day to make sure that pilots get
marked and the pecking order is well understood. Well, gets fings
done - dunnit?!
A few short weeks ago at Conington
we briefed at 07:30 and the first competitor was in the air at
07:58. This was followed by several hours at the grand rate of 12
sequences per hour, we got the job done, and I was quietly well
pleased. Today was not quite like that. If only the UK had some
weather we could rely on (of the right kind, I mean) I'd just love
to have a go at one of these international things from the
hot-seat. Fat chance....
In fact just three contestants flew
during all of today, in a really very unpleasant wind. Half loops
looked pretty much like fish-hooks, stall-turn snail trails looked
like pyramids, 45's weren't, and staying in the box was a
monumental trial. The eye-tie G-200 fared best, Irene's CAP-21 was
blown around like an autumn leaf, and even the Swedish Yak-55 had
a hard time. At one stage my judicial umbrella went all Mary
Poppins and nearly caught the downwind nearside box corner-judges'
attention before it was valliantly snatched from low orbit. As
Alice said to the Mad Hatter.... no, I mustn't. They tried hard,
the elements won. Aviation, phaw!
Back again soon,
Nick B
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August
29th
Tuesday Diary Part 2
It's Tuesday, and at last the
"real" sequences in this competition have started. When
we arrived this morning the wind had all the flags straining at
their poles, but by lunch-time it had amazingly abated and at
14:30'ish we were into the Free programmes. Preceding this the
figures for the second unknown were drawn, and - this time at 4th
in the queue - once again we have met an almost identical "we
can't do that...." from our Mediterranean colleagues. If our
sequence proposal is successful too (we'll know later on today)
then it'll be the 1st figure - and quite right too.
My new address on the judging line
is in a sense rather limiting, in that I now don't see any of the
tense preparation and sweaty post-flight self recriminations. On
the other hand it does indeed reveal many of those little things
that I have listened to other judges talking about for so long -
in a nutshell, the really skilled pilots (not that there aren't
any at home in our competitions!) really do present the whole
thing in a subtly different way than the aspiring coming-men (and
women....), the calm flow and lazier regularity of critical events
is much more controlled and hence truly easier to judge, and it's
plain to see where lack of finesse by some simply throws marks away. Petr
Biskup's uncharacteristic mistake in the 'Q' put him in as the
starter here, his fine performance this time being in stark
contrast to the few that followed. Martin fared somewhat better,
Cas went well but with some "outs", whilst Gary's grey
stuff failed in his 'P' loop and a plain Jane humpty came out
instead.... A German in a 231 seriously lost the plot and ran
around in thinks bubbles for a while, and in the end 23 were done
and the rest should be through by midday tomorrow. At this stage
Eltonas Meleckis of Lithuania leads in his 55, Frederic Chesnau is
2nd, Biskup is 3rd, Martin 14th, Cas two further back, and Gary is
the last Brit at 20th. We are all looking forward to guessing
Zolly's manifold pressure from the judging line, although we don't
yet know what the K will be.
The weather forecast is now good
for a few days, although with only three possible judging
positions and a 240-340 wind at this 330/150 runway airfield this
might present a problem or two. Let's hope we get it all done in
time.
Bye for now,
Nick B
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August
28th
Tuesday diary
After an excellent all-teams
get-together evening at a restaurant down the road from the
airfield, at which the Kiliti mayor and his PR man said lots nice
things as mayors and PR men often do, this morning has brought a
lovely looking day but with 28 knots gusting 35..... and the UK
tent is no more. Quick move next door, retire to the food and
coffee marquee.
The first unknown is sorted, but
only following removal of our 1/4 down after the cross-over spin.
We have thus revised the 2/4 to a 4/8, but really the figure has
lost it's bite. The published Italian / German sequence is not
bad, however with all the Free's to go our concentration is not
there yet.
Back again tomorrow!
Nick B
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August 27th
Hello,
Well, by sundown last night
eighteen pilots had flown, the commencement of aerial battle
being at 16:00 hrs. There were one or two snags to resolve (!)
but in the end the rate of take-offs rose to over five an hour,
so things are settling down. No real surprises for us - Cas
looks like he might have scored reasonably, Mark's went fine
until he pulled too hard in fig-3, the lights went down and the
snap got a bit delayed whilst the scenery came back on line,
Gary's looked really neat to Mark and I as we watched from the
judging line, although perhaps a bit too close, and Martin's
flight in slot-31 has had to wait until midday today.
This morning got off to a
reasonable start, with briefing at 08:00 for an intended 09:00
start. In the usual way of these things this took an hour or so
longer than that, the next 'joker' to be played concerning the
number of judges. There were just six yesterday, one less than
the approved CIVA minimum, so Something Had To Be Done. In the
end, after some extremely pleasant pleasantries.... yours truly
was swiftly elevated to the international judiciary, my Team
Manager's hat became a short memory, and promises were made for
a refund of my BAeA entry fee. Funny old thing....! As we were
in mid-'Q' at the time I've sat through a sort of solitary
apprenticeship chewing stalks of Hungarian grass, and now that
the first sequence has just finished I'll have a real job to do
from the start of round-2.
The results of programme-Q are
just now to hand. Top of the pile is Zoltan Veres with 78.77%,
Frenchmen Franck Soubrane and Simon Roy in their 231's are next,
Mark is 4th on 77.18%, Gary next up at 20th with 72.15%, Cas
down at 29th but still with 68.06%, whilst poor old Martin
slipped up with a severe heading error out of the fig-3 snap and
almost plays Mr Atlas at 32nd - the only man worse off is Petr
Biskup, '99 champion from Hradiste, who forgot the two
opposition rolls on the end of fig-7 for all of a couple of
seconds.
At 13:30 we are now into the
after-lunch briefing to put up the unknown figures. We drew 8th
slot, not auspicious, but as things went we still managed to put
up our prime choice - an 8.40.3 with one-and-a-half negative
cross-over spin into a three-quarter same-direction roll, then
pull round a 3/4 loop and exit with a 2/4 to cross-box erect.
This brought some fairly familiar howls of protest from the a
certain Mediterranean team, who were convinced that Vne and even
worse for their CAP-21's was inevitable from this dreadful
figure.... we withdrew marginally to just a 1/4 down after the
spin, and it looks as though this will survive. The whole point
is to engender disorientation, but who knows. The chaps have got
it all sorted during the Slovenian week, they say!
And finally - in an astonishing
announcement from the jury, the Extra-260 business has been sort
of resolved by Zoltan promising (officially...
honest!!) to run his 320hp machine at a reduced manifold setting
so as to produce only the same power as the CAP-231's, whatever
that is. A sort of graph was put on the board, Jiri the Jury
uttered the Bureau's words, and a picture-book glazed look came
over the assembled company. What a stroke of genius - have they
found the ultimate answer? So why not publish an official
maximum throttle setting for all aircraft, then we won't need
any eligibility rules at all - the playing field will be truly
level. You heard it here first, folks.
Now, at 16:15, if the wind will
co-operate - it's out into the field for me and up into the heat
for Martin.
Speak to you soon!
Nick B
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August 26th
Greetings from sunny
(phew!!) Hungary
After all the
weeks of planning and attention to detail, the reality is now
close to first base at Siofok Kiliti. This delightful grass
one-strip airfield is a longer stretch of grass than we had
imagined, almost 2 kilometers from the clubhouse to wherever it
goes at the south-east end. Once a Mig-21 daytime base, it's
lines of trees along the south side parallel to those along the
nearby road will make location of the judges a real problem for
Pavol Kavka, as the ground also slopes gently up away to the
north over a hill of sunflowers (them again!) and it's clear
that anyone getting low over the far side will be really hard to
see.
The gang arrived
in good style with a run and break on Friday evening, a couple
of healthy thunderstorms earlier in the day having kept all the
locals on the ground until mid-afternoon. The numbers however
have not swelled as the organisers expected, the Russian and
Ukraine teams both having failed to confirm their places on the
list in the past few days. In fact we have 33 pilots at first
briefing at 0800 on Sunday, the aeroplane count being somewhere
in the mid twenties. The familiar faces of Diana Britten and
Nigel Lamb are here just for Saturday to boost the Brit presence
however, with P51 and '232 respectively to exercise in the
crucial (for the sponsors) opening air show.
Mark, Cas, Martin
and Gary have clearly had a good week training at Murska Sobota
in Slovenia, without a coach this time but receiving daily
unknowns from Alan to back in Maidenhead. New boy Gary seems to
be thoroughly enjoying himself, but is one of just two Pitts
S1's so far in view - Cas's S2B being the only other bipe.
Monoplanes abound, the dominant marque being CAP and the
principal type the wooden-winged 231's that have found a new
lease since the CIVA ruling in May. No 222's of course, a few
Yak-55M's, some Italian CAP-20's to keep BIPO company, the Czech
Zlin-50's and so on. Significantly also here is Diana's old
Extra-260 for local man Zoltan Veres to drive, the eligibility
of this 320hp Barrett engined machine exercising many people in deep but as yet well
camouflaged concern.
At Sunday's
initial brief we have now been given to understand that a
definitive CIVA ruling will be published by the Jury by the time
the end of the 'Q' has arrived. The face of international
advanced does look set to undergo a seed change at this event,
and much of the pre-event gossip concerns how the balance can be
maintained as more and more requests are submitted for
obsolescent unlimited machines to be added to the list by the
CIVA Bureau. Nobody wants to be a stick-in-the-mud and it is
clear that to survive and flourish this class must develop - and
that means change, but stability and long-term planning are also
essential and we mustn't lose sight of the foundation aims of
our 'second tier' international class.
Things are a bit
behind following yesterday's show, which was attended by over
100,000 people (they say....) and by and large was not bad. Star
was undoubtedly a Mig-29 that started with a seriously fast and
noisy pass that developed into some upgoing snappy things via
lord knows how many G's. Nigel duly 'shot' the target Yak-52
down, Diana showed us she's getting to grips with the new '232,
and - rather revealing we thought - Zoltan wrung the Extra-260's
neck to good effect. Today the serious stuff gets going at
13:30, we all hope, Frenchman Frederic Chesneau having picked
the wind-dummy slot to the usual cheers all round, this year the
blind selection being from "Bull-shit" envelopes that
tastefully adorned the CD's desk. Cas is 5th to go, Mark 8th,
Gary 15th and - no doubt flying tomorrow - Martin 31st.
Be in touch soon!
Nick B
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August 15th
Although well up-to-speed and raring to go, Kester's hopes in
this championship have regrettably been dashed following the recent
tragic accident to French team man Richard Lothos. All G-202's are
now grounded whilst the French authorities investigate the cause, leaving those pilots entered with
this type neither sufficient time to make alternative arrangements
or indeed to transfer their skills to an alternate type.
We note also that the entry list now includes one
French Team member with a CAP-231 (yes - the same type that just
placed 2nd at WAC), and I also understand the CIVA Bureau has
decreed that the ex-Diana Britten Extra-260 (carbon wing, Barrett
315hp engine....!) is eligible too. Now, I just can't imagine that
the majority of assembled AEAC pilots will take to this
pair of rather far-reaching decisions too kindly, both being
curiously at odds with the
last few years' unbending retention by the CIVA plenary council of
the fixed list of allowable aircraft for this level of
international competition. It seems that the CIVA Bureau (Pres &
VP's) are free at any time to add such new aircraft to this list as
they see fit. Inclusion of the '231 was requested by the French at
the last CIVA meeting, and on the CIVA web-site it duly says "Proposal #1 to include the CAP 231 in Advanced competitions has been previously approved by the Bureau of CIVA in accordance with the authority given it to do so by plenary in November
2000". Regarding the Extra-260 however I know not a lot....
and if this one is OK, then for goodness sake let's at last adopt
Alan Cassidy's thoroughly justified "anything goes"
solution, as there would appear little to justify the '231 and '260
and not the '231-Ex and the '300. Of course there are good arguments in favour of
the inclusion of more modern aircraft - particularly of all
aircraft, but to slide the Extra in after the properly argued and voted
pronouncements of last year's annual CIVA Meeting seems to me a bit
rich. The last such debacle involved the Pitts S1-11's that flew at
AWAC in Kansas, which raised the hackles of many people.... and were
promptly banned at the next opportunity - but of course long after
the event and with the results still standing. You'd think we could
manage our little sport without this sort of political argy-bargy,
wouldn't you? Quite what effect this will have on the market values
of other main-line Advanced aeroplanes is anybody's guess!
Nick B
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August 7th
Just over two weeks to go now to the start of this championship,
or a week less if you're one of the above five pilots getting ready
to make the initial trek to Murska Sobota in Slovenia for a week of
training. As usual the flight won't be straightforward...
although most JAR bandwagon countries now toe the line fairly well
the Austrians still seem to have a problem with over-flights, their
squillion schillings fee demand and insistence on carrying ELT's
bringing back a memory or two of our '98 trip. As I remember
it silence is golden, particularly of the RT variety over some
places! They do have nice scenery though.
A late possibility that Graham Hill could come as
the UK judge has unfortunately faded away, along with the
possibility that Jen would assist him and spend some extra time
helping the AEAC organisers with their press handling. Their
loss.... Graham's, too! The smart Team polo shirts duly
arrived a week or three ago, but the enthusiastic embroiderer
unfortunately let the spelling of Martin's name get away so these
are being hastily re-invented. The five Free programmes are
more or less settled, although I wouldn't be too surprised if they
get changed during the week at Murska. The organisers' extraordinary
request for 28 copies of each form (!!) turns out to be their clever
way to get the usual 'booklets' of all the free sequences
pre-photocopied by the entrants, but no doubt there'll be a
Hungarian copier humming away a bit nearer the date.
I'm off to Ferihegy airport on Friday the 24'th,
and will try to email reports back each day for SWMBO to post above
this rambling diary note. If we don't see you at Conington this
weekend - watch this space!
Nick B
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June 16th
With a whole eight weeks to go before the advanced brigade ship out
to Murska Sobota in Slovenia for a week's training, before tackling
the last leg up to the quaintly named Siofok-Kiliti contest airfield
in Hungary, free programmes are still being passed around for
comment and preparations of all kinds seem rather far away. No doubt
when the time comes there'll be lots left to do....!
The team navy polo shirts are right now having
their Pilot Magazine sponsored embroidery applied, this tardy
process having led us to miss the only possible full-frontal photo
opportunity (at Pembrey, where lack of sponsors livery would rather
have spoilt the "team" image). No doubt there'll be time
enough for that in Hungary.
I promise to post more news when the paint has
dried....
Nick Buckenham
Team Manager
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