Well, initial signs were that things were starting to look up for General Aviation, although we all know one swallow does not a summer make. We had a National Gliding event right next door to us with some 50 aircraft and eight tugs launching that day out of Gransden Lodge. We had a microlight gathering at Popham with some 100 aircraft expected to fly in and to top it all we had the second attempt at getting our first BAeA Competition out of the blocks.

It all went off better than expected. We had 16 pilots booked and all turned up, we had three aircraft and five instructors all present and correct. All we needed was some weather, which did look a bit touch and go first thing.

The Sky Gods smiled on us this time, unlike a month ago when we had to cancel because of very low cloud. Holes started opening up, engines started up and away we went. Considering this was a Club Event, there was some excellent flying throughout the day. Seven of our pilots scored over 80%, no doubt a testimony to the excellent work by the instructors led by Adrian Willis and Mike Collett plus some great skills from the pilots themselves.

Also worth mentioning that when you have a lot of pilots flying a very small number of aircraft, you hope none go tech. They never missed a beat.

The object of the exercise with this event is to get one training flight each undertaken, return to the airfield and then fly the box. After the first sortie, each pilot would have the chance to review their performance with their instructors and think about how to improve on the score.

The second flight was a standard take-off, get clearance to enter the box and then fly “like you stole it”. Well, that didn’t quite work given some lowering clouds during the morning session and plenty of launches from the other Gransden airfield and our desire to keep plenty of separation.

In the end, it all worked out fine. By the end of play we had got around 40 flights away, 32 box flights and three medal winners. We were also delighted to see (without sounding controversial) a female winner; Bettina Bajaj, with an outstanding score of 85%!

Many thanks to all the support team, the judges and Mark Jefferies at Little Gransden, oh and Claire who came over from Cork, Ireland to watch her son fly in his first competition and ended up presenting the medals.

Here’s to a great competition season.

Philip Massetti
Competition Director