Gunpowder & Roy Legg Trophies, 2025 results
CD Report
Last weekend saw us host the penultimate power aerobatics contest of the year, with 15 pilots across the Sport and Intermediate classes, competing against each other for the Gunpowder and Roy Legg trophies respectively. Seb Pierson and the team at Leicester Airport were kind enough to host us for the second time this year, and did so brilliantly, with everyone looked after well in the air, on the ground, and in the café!
The weekend also saw us joined by 7 aspiring aerobatics pilots, who joined our “Get Into Aeros - Contests” event. Each of them flew two training sorties each, under the expert instruction of Julian Murfitt and Sean Link, where they learned to put the Pitts S-2A and Super Decathlon through their paces! We were also joined by 8-times British Aerobatic Champion and former Red Bull Air Race pilot, Nigel Lamb, who was kind enough to speak with the pilots and share his experiences. Many thanks to Jamie Williams for organising another successful GIA event.
With the exception of some low clouds on Saturday morning and a somewhat stiff wind, the weather was 10/10, and we managed to fly everyone through a Known and 2 Unknown programmes.
At Sports, the top 3 pilots - Toby Read, Richard Gale and John McCarthy - were neck and neck going into the final programme, with only 0.64% to separate them! Toby Read produced a very clean final flight in the Firefly to hold on to first place, with Richard coming second in his DR107. Rob Berger (at his first competition!) also flew a very tidy final flight, which had him jump into 3rd place in the final rankings. It was also great to see other new competitors for the first time: Bob Catterick and Alan George. I hope we will see you all back at the next comp!
At Intermediate, the results were also very close at the top of the leaderboard, with Jez Burgoin, Gary Ferriman, Nick Riddin and Ruth Scott all tussling for position throughout the 3 programmes. Nick set the pace in P1, pulling ahead immediately by a few percentage points. But a very clean flight in P2 saw Ruth take first place in that programme, so was all to play for going into the final flight. In the end, Nick put in another fine performance in P3, which ensured him the gold, with Gary and Ruth picking up silver and bronze respectively. It was also great to have Yves Mauchle from Switzerland in the group, for his first competition. Hopefully we’ll see him back too!
Finally, Dan Inge – one of the GIAC pilots – was successfully signed off at Club-level the Friday before the competition so was able to fly in front of the judges for the first time on Sunday. He flew very well, achieving an impressive 82.94%! Surely Sports next, Dan!? Dan is going to have Luke Roberts, another GIAC pilot, on his heels, as Luke successfully completed his Club-level solo endorsement flight in the Leicester box shortly after Dan’s flight - we look forward to seeing Luke and Dan competing soon!
The weekend closed with the usual awards ceremony, which was wrapped up in style by an unexpected fly-past from the BBMF’s Mk XVI Spitfire, who’d popped in after doing a display nearby. A great way to finish the weekend!
As always, a huge thanks to all the organisers and volunteers. This was my first time as Contest Director, and it’s impressive to see how much effort goes in behind the scenes to pull these events together. Big thanks from me to Steve Green and Jamie Williams, specifically, for guiding me through the process; and also to David Thomson who, similar to myself, had assumed the Chief Judge role for the first time, and ran the judging line with precision and style! Great to see some eagle-eyed experienced pilots helping on the judging line too. Thanks for your help.
The final power competition of 2025 will be the Tiger Trophy at Sleap on the 5th-7th September, alongside a Pitts fly-in to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the iconic aerobatic biplane. Hopefully see you there!
Chris Brook, Contest Director
