Of progress, excellence and secret gardens

The pilgrimage from local hotels to Conington Airfield is one covered by many an aerobatic competition pilot, from their first adventure at the Standard Nationals onwards through their Standard and Intermediate careers.

Some rural meandering leads ultimately to the gates of the airfield which, once entered, open up a “secret garden” - a happy place far removed from the sturm und drang of modern life, where the welcome is warm; the facilities just perfect; and the flying over the airfield about as good as it gets.

Nothing is too much trouble for Julie, Gavin, Sarah, Frank and Peter and the rest of the Conington team who, year after year, work so hard and yet with no fuss to give so many people wonderful aerobatic memories. Thank you to all of them!

Our competition was completed in two contrasting days - the first rather “British” with some sunshine, but huge showers in the late morning. With one day to go before August(!), I actually became concerned about hypothermia on the judging line as the day wore on to a close of flying at 7.30pm….The second day was rather “continental” and my anxiety shifted towards dehydration and sunstroke for our dedicated panel of judges and assistants!

And so to the flying. In Standard, the modest size of the field by numbers was not in any way correlated to the energy and determination that went into the flying. The theme of the Standard contest was definitely progress.

Two of our five joined Hors Concours, flying with Adrian Willis in G-EEEK. As the competition unfolded, both Phil Bennett and John Royce visibly got into their stride, their progress in all aspects of sequence execution being very noticeable. Well done both - and thank you to Adrian for his encouragement.

Our three Standard pilots flying solo all gave it everything: Iain Smith earned the Bronze flying his relatively new Pitts S2A. It was a shame for Iain that some clean, flowing flying was punctuated by the odd HZ which belied the quality of his piloting that was visible to us all. Keep at it Iain as I am sure you can be right “on it” at next year’s Nationals!

David Farley earned a well-deserved Silver in BTTR with around 65% overall - as well as maximum respect for his sportsmanship when Neil Spooner had an issue in the air. Neil flew extremely well and consistently to become the 2015 Standard National Champion with close to 75% overall. In so doing, Neil won the Nigel Arthur Trophy - kindly presented by Pam Arthur who battled the Friday traffic from Milton Keynes to present the medals and trophies. Thank you so much Pam - and congratulations to Neil.

So if the theme of the Standards was progress, at Intermediate it was excellence. A glance at the score sheet evidences the high standard of flying across the piece. John Scott’s flying of his CAP was truly poetic - John wringing out all he could from this graceful machine whose elliptical wing looked stunning in plan form contrasted against the deep blue of the Friday morning sky.

Above John in the scores came the Battle of the Edges; a duel between Farrell McGee and Paul Elvidge settled in the last unknown when Paul landed a deciding 81% blow with an outstanding flight and became our 2015 Intermediate National Champion with an overall score of 78%. The T67 Meister has successfully reinvented himself as King of the Edge! Very well done Paul - and Farrell and John too.

The action in the air could only be a competition with the efforts of those on the ground. Warm personal thanks to our fantastic judging team led by our HCO Brian McCartney; and to Ian Scott for his great work keeping scoring and control running smoothly throughout the whole event.

So, after two contrasting days, our business was concluded; the prizes presented in glorious afternoon sunshine, and most visitors left the secret garden until next year.

I say “most” as the team at Conington allowed Brian and the team to run a training event on the Saturday as we had completed the competition a day early.  How good is that?