High pressure – usually good. Fenland – always good. Fantastic 5-level entry – very good indeed. However two whole days with a clear horizon but a solid cloud-base tantalisingly crawling from 1,100ft to 2,100ft and back again – not good. Thus Friday and Saturday at Fenland’s lovely airfield were spent in time-honoured style dealing with coffee, tea and other sustenance, mixed with the usual hard-to-believe aerobatic banter. Never been there before ...

With stoic enthusiasm almost everyone stayed for the Sunday version, which at 10:00 was looking good and by 11:00 we were at last launched into proper competition mode. Having originally started with a blooming programme of 35 entries for 13 sequences we had to trim the reality back to one sequence all round, with a prospect of more if we could manage the first round by about 16:00. The judging team unfortunately were not able to maintain our initial expectations for the whole event, and for this one day it fell to just Ian Scott as CJ and John Royce as J2 plus a goodly assortment of callers, assistants and others to man (and woman) the panel. With only a little wind to bother us, mostly from the NNE, the judges spent their day far away perched on the side of Quick Lane, viewing performances with their axis (mostly) aligned N-S, launching from runway 36.

It was the Intermediate brigade that opened the show, and on this occasion these five stalwarts were well bested by Jez Burgoin in his venerable Pitts S-2A. It was good to see CAP-232 G-SKEW in new hands (those of new-to-Intermediate George Haye, all the way from Prestwick) but this time it was two wings good at the head of the queue. Most of the UK Advanced Team were in attendance and raring to go, and here a very on-form Paul Brice showed a clean pair of heels to the rest. Just two competitors raised the Unlimited flag, Chris Brook giving the G-IISC Extra-330SC syndicate the pleasure of another well-conducted and thus gold medal performance.

This event is traditionally built around the Elwyn McAully Trophy, where Sports competitor fly their Known sequence with three extra figures added to demonstrate their prowess at free figure selection. Unfortunately for Sharon Wang some oily MP-14 issues rendered her expected Yak-52 unavailable, and a seat in the Willis Extra-200 G-EEEK was the only solution. This oh-so-hard-working machine was also the mount for five other pilots, and as usual the change-overs and refuelling activity needed – and received – deft handling. The unusual McAully sequence format inevitably lowers the strike rate somewhat, and it became clear that with the two Club pilots to round-off the show we wouldn’t have the time to fly anyone twice. The day’s activities thus came to a close at just after 16:30 so that many pilots could swiftly depart to airfield destinations around the country.

Fenland Airfield President and ATC stalwart Ray Nicholson was on hand to present the awards, and you can check through all the results below to see who carried off the medals. It was quite a tough event, but as usual perseverance and good humour overcame (almost!) all. In just a few days we have the Advanced and Unlimited Nationals at Sywell, so to many of you – see you soon!