The Tiger holds fond memories for me as it was my first ever beginners and standard level comp, not a great result mind you! Entrants are up this year, with 37 names in the pot and 4 teams, so all we need are conditions to let them fly in for the 9:30 brief. Low cloud below 1000 feet makes arrivals a little challenging and heavy rain to the East firmly holds Tony Walsh and Adrian Wills on the ground. And yet out of the Wild West from across the Irish Sea a CAP 232 appears with flicking Irish team captain, Eddie Goggins at the helm. Needless to say, conditions were not looking favourable first thing and all we could do is wait. The Judging position is very close to the tower at Leicester so the three judges could be mobilised at a moment's notice, which proved beneficial over the coming 2 days. – Still we wait, giving us the all important opportunity to catch up with old friends and talk hot air, putting the world to rights. East Mids reported scattered at 1800 and overcast at 3400 so 16 degrees could give us what we need but the cold North Westly was making Go Karting at the race track on the airfield look very inviting as a fall back Tiger comp. Paul T and I investigated, and had a track time for 20 budding Lewis Hamiltons ready for 6:00. Meanwhile rain continued to plague Adrian, only 10 mins away, preventing him positioning GEEK and we sat in heavy cloud below 1700 feet.

2:00 saw enough warming to kick me into action like a lizard lying on a rock waiting for the sunshine. By 2:30 George Haye is taxiing out in his Pitts and despite some low lumps of scud he called 3400 feet in the box so we were off with a regular stream of Sport pilots taking to the sky. An hour later, Ruth launches in G-OCRM all fired up only to disappear behind a huge cloud forcing her to return to base. Meanwhile, Sam Hewitt was covering my duties of keeping the judges fed and watered by bringing out the tea and coffee only to be faced by a mass exodus, as the rain cloud loomed over us, scattering pilots, judges and assistance in all directions, hiding aircraft in the hangers.

With Paul Bryce kindly coaching me on the WX we could see a chance behind the rain and at 16:30 I could relaunch Ruth. I grabbed the opportunity of the restart to prepare James Law to fly his first competition flight in the Cessna 152A. He was the only Club pilot and put in a very respectable 62% in what we know is a very demanding machine. Now the race is on. With normal airfield closure at 17:00, I negotiated an extension by bribing the firemen to stay till 18:00 and Greg in ops and the tower to stay till 19:00. This is going to be a long day. Double rainbows greet us as the rain clears, making a striking sky for the bright yellow Slingsby followed by a 152, swiftly followed by Dave Farley as the start of Intermediate. Just to keep the judges sharp I then threw an advanced pilot into the mix, knowing David Nichols could not fly on Sunday. It gave us a chance for everyone to fly, and a bonus to fill a gap while pilots changed seats in shared aircraft. By this time the sun was on its way down and 19:00 loomed close. Desperate to conclude the Intermediate level, Matt Morris took to the sky with Lucky Luke at the hold, ready to steal the last flight before curfew. Unfortunately more cloud scuppers my plan and down comes G-TWOO forcing us to close the day. At this point, owing to a small misunderstanding, I am unaware that my official close time was in fact 18:00. Had it not been for one noise complaint at 6:45 when David Slater happened to be in the box, I might have got away with it!  All was well though, and the airfield officials were very understanding and have invited us to return.

With 14 flights completed and up to 17 more to fly, I took the unpopular decision to bring the briefing forward to 8:00 on a Sunday….and yes Paul T was right, we would be fogged in, but no one would have thanked me if it was blue sky with a 9:00 brief. Again, we waited and talked, and the GEEK pilots still had no wings with Adrian firmly grounded to the East. Long after, our local traffic was able to fly, all be it with a low cloud base. Sadly, as we passed 11:30, I lost Paul Bryce to work commitments soon followed by Peter and Jake in GEEK who lost confidence they would get a chance to fly. (Sorry guys if I misled you. Back of the grid didn’t mean all 4 of you at the end, one after the other).

The airmass was similar to Saturday, and with additional Gliding WX coaching from Paul it was clear all we needed was sun on the ground to raise the temperature. 13 Degrees at East Mids and 2000 feet overhead we just needed 3 degrees to turn up. Being ever the optimist, I was sure Diana would pop around the corner. Curiously what happened was text book gliding conditions, as the unstable airmass split into streets, allowing the sun to hit the ground and raise the temp. By 12:30 there were large gaps between streets, commonly known as a suckers’ gap, and cloud base still sitting at 2500ish. Luke launched to use the gap and slam!! before he got to the hold, the streets had slid across to the East lining up a mass of cloud in the box. 10 mins later and he is airborne again, but again we missed it and down he came. Meanwhile Mat has chewed his nails to the bone and Eddie has decided he doesn’t mind risking a zero behind a cloud. Curiously around 2:30!! he is in the box (he should get that tooth looked at) and the sky opens up for our only UNL pilot to give us the full sequence. With another street passing overhead I get Matthew and Luke back in the sky, and slowly we work our way through the contestants in between streets. However, now the sun is getting through, the cloud base eases up and by 15:00 its full steam ahead, launching the advanced pilots in a steady stream.

News Flash -  finally Connington clears their fog and G-GEEK has arrived. Once again, the Judges are kept on their toes now juggling Adv, UNL and Sport paperwork, making Sam Hewitt and Ian Scott’s job all the more difficult. What’s more, the pilots are having to put up with me swapping them around to ensure I optimise the flying opportunities as much as possible. Having now managed to fly Matt Kitson in GEEK, I could see his wait was worth it, coming in Third in his class. Neil Whitehead was still holding first place in both his class and the Tiger, in non other than a Slingsby T67, closely followed by Ruth Scott in Waltham based T67 - G-OCRM. However, their dreams were shattered by the sterling performance by Paul Tomlinson in the CAP232 pushing out 82% to take the Tiger with flying colours.

Now it’s 16:10 on a Sunday. Can’t we go home? No chance, I have Michael Fopp representing the Royal Aeroclub patiently waiting for the Intermediate boys to strut their stuff in the Apprentices sequence and a great deal of excitement from 5 budding pilots desperate to launch. Steve rightly insisted on a 20 min judging break giving me time to organise a running order for 5 intermediate pilots and one 4 Min Free Style pilot. I launch Patrick at 16:25. Surely a 15min break was enough!! We still needed to get a CAP 232 back across the Irish sea after all.

By this time the wind had moved a great deal. While we still had a raging on judge wind to contend with, the runway direction was now 10 but the competition wind was still 28 as it had been all weekend. Less confusion for the pilots of course. Sadly Dave Farley carefully planned his Apprentice flight all in the wrong direction, starting cross box with an impressive knife edge spin soon followed by a well executed knife to knife hesitation roll at the top of a loop all in the wrong direction. I point 

this out not to embarrass him but to highlight what a great flight he did bar one tiny error he made long before he climbed into the aircraft. Eddie wowed the spectators with an impressive 4 Min free showing off his and the fine capabilities of the CAP 232. And finally, with a very large smile, the bacon was brought home by Matthew Morris, winning the Royal Air Squadron trophy so I look forward to watching him at Advanced next year or are you jumping to UNL Matt?

My thanks to EGBG for looking after us so well and letting me push the flying so late on Saturday. The ground team did us proud with results and gongs all done by 6:00 but I must also thank the pilots for putting up with my pushing them around to squeeze the maximum out of the flying opportunities.

For me I now enjoyed the long drive South made all the more enjoyable when Eddie pinged me a TXT still 2 hours from home saying he had landed back in Ireland…… I so want my CAP back:

Shame we didn’t get the Masters done and a second unknown for Sport but importantly everyone there to the end got to fly which was my prime objective.