This year's Senior Nationals were again held at Sywell, their regular base since the early '90s. So, special thanks are due to the Sywell airfield management who so kindly agreed to host the event again.

The entry at Unlimited this year was, sadly, just 3 pilots, but Advanced attracted 15 or so entrants. Bad weather in the north on Wednesday afternoon/Thursday morning reduced the field a little. Twelve Advanced pilots, however, managed to stay the course and the results are published on the BAeA website, alongside this report. So, special congratulations to our two 2018 National Champions: Gerald Cooper at Unlimited and David Thomson at Advanced.

Wednesday afternoon saw a number of competitors fly in, to be sure to be sure, with more following on Thursday morning in time for the scheduled briefing time of 1030. Unfortunately, the low cloud was slower than forecast to lift and the start of Programme 1 was delayed until getting on for 3pm. Brisk work from the pilots, as well as by the judges under CJ Steve Todd, enabled us to complete this first routine very shortly before the airfield closed at 6pm.

Friday's weather was more co-operative and allowed each pilot to fly twice either side of the lunch break. As none of the Unlimited pilots opted to try for the Final Freestyle David Perrin trophy, that just left the final Unknown, Programme 4, for each pilot to complete on Saturday. Again, the early weather had low cloud, but this lifted enough for us to get going again with a free break available, and the contest was fully completed by the early afternoon.

Our guest judge from the USA, Peggy Riedinger, kindly agreed to award the trophies and medals; I am sure that Leif will soon have uploaded a number of images to the website by way of illustration.

Alan Cassidy