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The World Glider Aerobatic
Championships
Cordoba, Spain - 18th to 30th June 2001 |
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The BAeA
Unlimited
Glider Team |
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Guy
Westgate |
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| Ian
Tunstall |
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| Paul
Conran |
All
five are flying Fox JKC
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UK Judge -
Assistant -
Observer - |
Ben Ellis
Dick Happs
Judy Jones |
| Jamie
Allen |
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| Chris
Cain |
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| BAeA
Teams Abroad - main page |
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BAeA Power Unlimited Team diary |
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BAeA Advanced Team diary |
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Glider Unlimited Team Diary |
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. . . RESULTS . . . . |
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26th June
The (slightly intermittent...) power of mobile telephony has
come to the aid of the party today, the following being what I can
remember of a chat with Ben as he whiled away the evening in the
judges' orange grove - whilst no-one flew.... you can tell, I'm
sure, that progress in Spain is not quite as riveting as it might
be!
The Known has been flown by all 55 competitors, and 14 have now
completed Programme-2 Unknown. After the known Panferov (Russia)
is leading on 81.33%, Makula (Poland) second on 80.59% and Toth
(Hungary) in third place with 78.39%. Amongst the Brits Jamie
Allen is 29th on 69%, Paul Conran 36th on 63%, Guy Westgate 44th
on 56%, Ian Tunstall 46th on ??% and Chris Cain 54th on just 28%.
Chris, it seems, flew a lovely sequence, unfortunately most of it
just wasn't in the box. Until you've done one of these things you
have no idea how devastating a bunch of "outs" can be.
It all sounds a bit like one of Eric Morecombe's Grieg piano
concertos, with all the right notes but in the wrong order. Team
spirit, we understand, is high. Gosh, they're Brits!
The weather in Cordoba is apparently quite predictable, the early
morning moisture rising to form low cloud with poor visibility
until around mid-day. This does then clear, but is often followed
by sharply rising winds (courtesy of the temperature gradient)
which heads rapidly towards out-of-limits and lots of sitting
about in 40°ish heat. Hmm! Our Team pilots are apparently in one
hotel, other nations are in other hotels, and the officials (ie.
Ben, Dick, Judy and the rest) miles (sorry, kilometres) away in
others. Segregation rules, OK.
I understand that power failures are quite normal, in fact Ben
spied a UPS (un-interruptible power supply, not the parcel
service) en-route to the scorers abode during the course of this
afternoon. Results entry has however been fragmented, and hair
reportedly torn. It also appears that the CIVA scoring software
has waved a few bugs around; one of Ben's hard zeros (which have
to be expressed as 0.5 marks.... don't ask) came back for change
as the programme couldn't accept it. And this is the World Air
Games? Add to that the complete lack of current (or any!!!) WAC or
WGAC results, entry listings, judging news or daily updates on the
very glitzy (but desperately slow...) WAG web-site and you can
imagine your scribes scorn.
So - we'll endeavour to keep in touch with Ben, Dick, Judy and the
lads as the days roll by, and no doubt will post whatever comes
our way. Good luck to the UK Team, slightly less good luck to
other competitors, and let's hope they get it all done by next
Saturday. Hasta la vista, baby!
Nick B
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June 14th
Hmm, these power bods have all the fun !, shame about the food. The
Glider contingent from the UK for the WAG will be leaving tomorrow with trailer to drive through the tunnel, France and Spain hopefully arriving
in time to get a couple of practice flights each in Spain before the contest starts.
This year we have our largest ever UK team of 4 + 1/2 pilots, the 1/2
being me who competed in my first unlimited contest a couple of weeks ago in the UK nationals ! The rest are all old hands and experts at this game,
still there's always the sunshine. Myself and Ian Tunstall are driving the car pulling the glider, the rest
of the team including Dick, Judy and Ben our expert band of judges and Guy, Jamie and Paul the
rest of the pilot contingent are flying out next week.
Chris Cain
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