As is so often the case for Aerobatics competition in the UK, the story of this year's Little Gransden Club Event was dominated by the weather.

The day started with mist and viz at the airfield somewhere between 2 and 3km underneath a 300' cloud base. The forecast predicted CAVOK by 6pm. Not an ideal start for a fully subscribed event.

Despite these unpromising beginnings we had 16 of the 20 pilots, who had signed up for the event, present for the briefing at 09:30! One unusual note during the briefing, Mark Jefferies warned us about avoiding a local chicken farm, where the chickens can be frightened into a stampede!

At 11:30 we had a second briefing and decided that we would change the plan for the day and drop one of the flights. Each competitor would now get a practice flight, away from the airfield, and then return to fly in the box where their flight would be judged and scored. At this stage the weather was still too poor to fly. We had fog, heavy showers and even some fairly impressive hail!

Nick Buckenham, who was a last minute stand-in for Brian McCartney in the role of chief judge, spent some time taking the pilots through the sequence describing what the judges were looking for. This was the first competition for all but one of the pilots. I think it useful for Club events like this, to have some ground briefing available in the event of bad weather.

Mark Jefferies entertained us with a "Cloud base check" flying an impressive practice display including trying some new gyroscopic figures.

By 12:30 METARs from nearby airfields looked more promising and more importantly we started to see some decent gaps in the clouds. All the time the cloud base was lifting. We decided to launch and take our chances in the gaps. In the event, once we started only one competitor had to land to wait out a shower before going back into the box to finish their "competition flight".

Five aeroplanes flew in the competition with G-ODDS, G-EEEK and G_WVEN flying all but two of the competitors. The instructors of these aircraft did a sterling job keeping the aeroplanes, and the judges, busy.

There was some very nice flying on display, as well as a couple of quite nice looking picnics, complete with wine, though not for the pilots :)

At the end of the day all 16 pilots who made it to the event flew, of those 11 scored over 70%, a very creditable result.

Oliver Spencer took the honours with a score of 79.922%. His family had brought one of those good-looking picnics, I don't know if he got a glass of wine after the flight but he certainly deserved one.

I would like to thank our team of dedicated judges, who sat through showers, cold winds, as well as some lovely sunshine later in the day. They also coped admirably with a somewhat dynamic flying order, but nevertheless they and Jen Buckenham (admin & scorer), ended up awarding the correct pilot with the correct scores in each case.

I would also reiterate my thanks to the instructors from The British Aerobatic Academy and Ultimate Aerobatics for their sterling efforts.

We, British Aerobatics, also owe a debt of gratitude to Mark Jefferies for his support and the use of his lovely airfield.

Finally my thanks go to the competitors, thanks for putting up with the changes to the plan forced upon us by the weather and bearing it with good grace. I would also like to welcome you to the competition community, congratulations on your entry into our sport and I hope to see you all at another event soon.

Finally, I am happy to report that no chickens were harmed in the making of this competition!

  Dave Farley (CD)