Contest Director's Report
McAully, Fenland and Cavendish Hotel Trophies – Fenland – 24^th& 25^th June 2023

What an excellent weekend. All trophies were set to be well contested, nineteen pilots in all and the forecast was as a British summer’s day should be. So, let’s get the bad news out of the way first; three pilots had to bale out before the day of the competition and the sun didn’t appear until late morning and a resultant first flight set for 12 o’clock mid-day. Already behind the curve.

Briefings done and a warm welcome extended from the Fenland management with commitments from all to make this a well-run, well flown competition. We like Fenland and BAeA has a lot of history with them. We would like to be welcomed back.

Running orders were set with a plan to run nine Sportsman flights, including one Club pilot shoehorned in amongst that squadron, followed by three Intermediate pilots and then finally four Advanced pilots to finish off the day. The plans of mice and men……..

Whilst the McAully Trophy is notoriously slow because of the additional figures tacked on the end, the forces of evil conspired to affect just about every flight in that group. Lost keys in the aircraft, a faulty canopy latch, fuel cap tightener dropping off at the hold, lots of strap adjustments, refuelling and safety pilots jumping in and out all of which happened in Adrian Willis’ Extra 200. That aircraft certainly earns it’s keep.

Somewhere around 18.30hrs, Sportsman plus 1xClub and Intermediate had flown twice and Advanced had managed to get their Free Known in. The judges by now were looking frazzled after working on their tans so we called it a day. The catering team laid on some lovely food and beers. An appropriate way to end day one.

Day two started with blue skies, all the 9s and a 90-degree change in wind direction and judges positioning; which always plays with pilots minds. Briefings over by 08.45hrs and a planned start at 09.30hrs with Advanced flying their First Unknown. Some pilots had been called back home for a variety of reasons on the Saturday evening, They were all back in time for the Sunday morning start.

Given a 30%-40% forecast of thunderstorms around 16.00hrs down the middle of the UK we were conscious some people had to get back to Manchester and surrounding areas, so the aim was to get the competition finished early afternoon with three sequences flown in all categories. We did it.

What made for an equally encouraging event was the number of new pilots taking part, lets hope they stay committed. Also, for what in many ways has been a male dominated “motor sport” it was refreshing to see excellent performances from Barbara Blythe flying at Sportsman, a first competition flight for Isabel Rutland in her beautiful Pitts S2A taking silver, also at Sportsman with 82.175%. Finally, within the female cohort, a superb performance from Lauren Russell flying for the first time at Advanced in the Extra 330LX also taking silver and scoring a very creditable 69.585%. Well done all.

To end, you can practice all you like, go to training camps and turn up to all the competitions and consume huge amounts of Avgas, but if it wasn’t for the commitment of the judges and support team it would all be for nought. So, once again a big thank you to them.

Fenland received no complaints, even their CFI seemed happy! We have been invited back.

Philip Massetti
Competition Director