The BAeA Senior National Championships were held successfully, and without incident, at Sywell last Thursday to Saturday. 

Rather surprisingly, the Unlimited entry of 6 pilots turned out larger than that for Advanced, primarily because of unplanned maintenance required on 2 or 3 aircraft that would otherwise have been brought into the competition. This shortage, however, did mean that we were able to complete a full programme of four Aresti flights in each category and a Final Freestyle with a field of just two competitors. 

Our new Unlimited National Champion is Melanie Astles who, though living in France, has dual citizenship and is thus fully entitled to British Championship honours. Melanie achieved the highest score in each of the 4 Aresti programmes as well as in the Final Freestyle. The Advanced contest was, overall, a more closely contested event with David Kean coming out on top. 

Liaison with the host airfield was full and effective; there were no delays to flying other than minor early morning cloudbase issues. Each of the four principal programmes required only eleven flights to complete both categories. Thus, a Free Known, two Compulsory Unknowns and a third, Free, Unknown were completed. There then remained enough time on Saturday afternoon to fly the Freestyle and the contest closed at roughly 1520 on Saturday. The reserve day of Sunday was not required. 

Thanks are due to CJ Nick B. and a very full judging team, as well as to Jen for her immaculate scoring. 

Yours sincerely 

Alan Cassidy, Contest Director