Golding-Barrett & Duxford, 2017 results

Sunshine and showers; that was one interpretation of Saturday morning’s aviation weather forecast.  The TAFs actually looked quite reasonable in some respects, with a forecast cloud base of 3,500’ and various prob. 30s throughout the day.  Little did we know what Sleap’s very own micro climate was going to throw at us!

The original published programme of events was to run sequentially from Club to Advanced but it was clear before the 9.30AM brief that we wouldn’t have the 3,400’ cloud base required for club level pilots.  I therefore decided to reverse the flying order for Sports and Club in the hope that we might get the Club pilots to fly later in a rising cloud base as the day warmed up, and that the Sports contingent would have the necessary 2,800 to start flying. That was the theory.

In practice, John Royce was first up in conditions which looked marginal but flyable.  Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case.  Various false dawns later we eventually got a sequence complete with Maciej Kulaszewski in G-EEEK, but progress was painfully slow as judges ran for cover from the seemingly endless series of showers.  Bryher Grimes and her family had valiantly shown up to witness the awarding of the Golding Barrett trophy, named after her father, but spent most of the afternoon like the rest of us drinking cups of tea and getting soggy.

With only two flights in the bag as the hail set in we had another briefing at 16.45 to decide how to spend the remainder of the afternoon. The fire crew, who not only provide safety cover but also refuelling, had very kindly offered to stay beyond their scheduled 5pm departure to help us but it was questionable whether conditions were going to improve.  We had nothing to lose by staying put so decided to wait until 6pm and make another call then if flying had commenced.

Thankfully our perseverance was rewarded and by 5.15pm we were bathed in late afternoon sunshine, sunshine that practically everywhere else in the north west seemed to have been enjoying for most of the day.  This gave us the window we needed to complete all bar one of the remaining Sportsman flights and salvage something from what had hitherto been a disappointing day.

Sunday’s briefing was brought forward by half an hour to try and make the most of conditions which were likely to begin within limits but were forecast to deteriorate during the day.  With both warm and cold fronts moving through the north west we needed to make the most of the morning.

With the runway inspection completed by 08.45 we were able to launch Mark Thomas, the last remaining Sports pilot, at 09.00 and one entire programme was actually now complete.  The Club Known followed, although Sam Hewitt had to forego her slot to bail out her aeroplane, which was as sodden as most of the contest officials had been the day before.  Clearly no-one thought to fit bilge pumps as standard to Slingsby T67s.  She eventually got to fly her sequence after the other club pilots had flown, but aborted it after the first figure when her engine coughed from possible fuel starvation.

Continuing straight onto the intermediates we declared an unpenalised break in light of some of the lowish clag that was heading our way.  Weather-wise, Sunday seemed to be the antithesis of Saturday, with everywhere else having plenty of low cloud but for the time-being our contest box seemingly immune.

The Judges and their assistants magnanimously agreed to postpone their break to enable us to continue with the four advanced pilots, all of whom had expressed a desire to fly a BAeA unknown rather than the scheduled free known, since it was likely they would only be able to make a single flight.

With all four categories having flown we declared a lunch break and subsequent briefing to decide how best to use what was left of our weather window.  The priority at this point was to try to get the Sports and Intermediate pilots to fly an unknown; Sports because they had only flown one unknown so far this season and Intermediates, who had yet to fly an unknown in competition this year.  In the case of the intermediates there were five pilots on 80% and above after their free known, so an unknown would have been an excellent showdown for the Roy Legg trophy.  In light of the size of the field, I decided to introduce a cut at 80% and above for the intermediates and to fly them in reverse order of ranking after the sports unknown programme.

Sadly it was not to be.  We managed to finish the sports sequence, which had the effect of reversing the top two pilots for the Golding Barrett, but by the time David Heard got airborne for the intermediates the cloud base had deteriorated to 2,600’ - which then became 2,500’ whilst he was circling.  There was no evidence of higher stuff to the south west and Rod Herve, our chief judge and resident cloud expert, opined that things were unlikely to improve.  We decided to declare it a wrap at that point and accept that fate had actually been quite kind to us for the bulk of Sunday.

So there is was, lots of showers and a little bit of sunshine on Saturday evening.  We were able to complete the competition, though, and the scores demonstrate how competitive the fields were across all four categories.  Maciej Kulaszewski achieved a stunning victory from Duncan Cumberlidge and Simon Wood at Sports in his first ever aerobatic contest and with only 80 hours total time.  Dave Farley, likewise on 83.05%, demonstrated how at home he now is in his 231EX, whilst Kris Liesmons and Matt Morris both achieved scores which ordinarily might win a contest.  In advanced Chris Brook flew a very clean unknown to retain the Duxford trophy David Kean and Ron Allan, while Peter Begley scored a very creditable 82.95% to win the club category.

Our thanks as always go out to Nathan Cross and his team at Sleap for making us so welcome and for pulling out the stops when it mattered on Saturday evening.  Likewise to Rod Herve our chief judge, and his dedicated team of judges and assistants and Ian Scott, our unflappable scoring director.

Nick Richards

Golding Barrett Trophy - Sports

Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Known Unknown Totals O/all %
1 Maciej Kulaszewski Extra 200 G-EEEK 1287.92 1025.70 2313.61 79.506
2 Duncan Cumberlidge Acro Sport G-TSOL 1358.81 906.09 2264.91 77.832
3 Simon Wood Pitts S-1S G-HOON 1256.74 858.00 2114.73 72.671
4 Ruth Scott Slingsby T67M G-BUUK 1153.98 920.81 2074.80 71.299
5 Stephen Smartt Extra 200 G-EEEK 1153.83 875.78 2029.61 69.746
6 Mark Thomas Extra 200 G-UIII 1094.73 1094.73 37.619
7 John Royce Extra 200 G-EEEK 1004.02 1004.02 34.502
H/C David Brown Extra 200 G-TWOO 961.12 961.12 33.028

Note! Score Adjustment Factors have been applied Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Rod Herve, Scoring Director: Ian Scott

Judges: Rod Herve, Eric Marsh, John Scott, Martin Sandford,

Judges Assistants: Julie Wood, Charles Bonello, Hannah Short, Antoinne Schlieper

FairPlay SystemACRO Version 4.2 Build: 23/07/17

Club Level Result - Final

Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Known #1 Totals O/all %
1 Peter Begley Extra 200 G-EEEK 572.33 572.33 82.946
2 Steve Bakhtiari Vans RV-7 G-DVMI 555.55 555.55 80.514
3 Ben Goodwill Slingsby T67M G-BUUK 533.38 533.38 77.302

Note! Score Adjustment Factors have been applied Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Rod Herve, Scoring Director: Ian Scott

Judges: J1 - Rod Herve, J2 - Eric Marsh, J3 - John Scott, J4 - Martin Sandford,

Judges Assistants: Julie Wood, Charles Bonello, Hannah Short, Antoinne Schlieper

FairPlay SystemACRO Version 4.2 Build: 23/07/17

Duxford Trophy - Advanced - Final

Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Unknown Totals O/all %
1 Chris Brook Extra 330SC G-IISC 2329.08 2329.08 83.780
2 David Kean DR-107 G-IIID 2208.26 2208.26 79.434
3 Ron Allan Edge 360 G-ZVKO 2134.59 2134.59 76.784
4 Paul Elvidge Edge 360 G-CDDP 1964.69 1964.69 70.672

Note! Score Adjustment Factors have been applied Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Rod Herve, Scoring Director: Ian Scott

Judges: J1 - Rod Herve, J2 - Eric Marsh, J3 - John Scott, J4 - Martin Sandford,

Judges Assistants: Julie Wood, Charles Bonello, Hannah Short, Antoinne Schlieper

FairPlay SystemACRO Version 4.2 Build: 23/07/17

Roy Legg Trophy - Intermediate - Final

Rank Pilot Aeroplane Registration Fr/Known Totals O/all %
1 Dave Farley CAP 231 G-GKKI 1910.06 1910.06 83.046
2 Kris Liesmons Extra 200 G-TWOO 1905.53 1905.53 82.849
3 Matt Morris Extra 200 G-TWOO 1886.37 1886.37 82.016
4 Alex Cartwright Pitts S-2E G-KITI 1863.17 1863.17 81.007
5 David Heard Extra 200 G-TWOO 1844.63 1844.63 80.201
6 Jez Burgoin Pitts S-2A N-80035 1766.39 1766.39 76.800
7 Luke Goddard Pitts S-1E N-IIN 1682.60 1682.60 73.156
8 Anthony Walsh Extra 200 G-OLUD 1593.25 1593.25 69.272
9 David Brown Extra 200 G-TWOO 1546.40 1546.40 67.235
10 David Hall Pitts S-2A G-BTTR 1500.80 1500.80 65.252
11 Stephen Evans Laser 200 G-CBHR 1330.66 1330.66 57.855

Note! Score Adjustment Factors have been applied Contest Director: Nick Richards, Contest Chief Judge: Rod Herve, Scoring Director: Ian Scott

Judges: J1 - Rod Herve, J2 - Eric Marsh, J3 - John Scott, J4 - Martin Sandford,

Judges Assistants: Julie Wood, Charles Bonello, Hannah Short, Antoinne Schlieper

FairPlay SystemACRO Version 4.2 Build: 23/07/17