Sportflight

Today’s task (an 8am start due to poor weather expected) was to fly a spiral curved track at a predicted groundspeed, followed by a slow leg (fly as slowly as possible), again with deck take-offs and landings. Co-pilots were complaining that they’d have nothing to do, I’m sure I saw Ollie take a jigsaw puzzle with him, or was it a copy of the latest ‘Heat’? I’m again in the team tent, and the weather forecast has come good - it’s just started chucking it down - and Ollie is letting off his ire by not just swatting flies, more like pounding them into a blood-soaked lump. Most pilots have returned saying it wasn’t too difficult a task, except for poor Jay and Brad, who forgot to turn their logger on, so they are going to score zero. They’re both being philosophical about it, but you can tell they are pretty annoyed with themselves.

Now that the first scores are up (even though they are wrong!) the complaints are pouring in - if a pilot thinks he has been scored wrongly, then he has to write to the competition director with his complaint. If the answer is still not acceptable, then the pilot gets an appeal to the Jury (paying €50 for the privilege to weed out the downright silly ones, the cash being refunded if the protest is accepted).

Rob Grimwood’s girlfriend Louise has just arrived - I thought the sun had popped out from behind the thunder clouds, but no, it’s the smile on Rob’s face when he thinks about the lack of sleep he’ll be getting tonight. In fact, the team tent is being battered quite heavily by the rain right now, so we’ve had just about every sort of weather there is so far. It makes things pretty boring being stuck in the tent. Paul’s just picked up Anja’s teen magazine, I think he’s getting into training for being a father.

Rob G’s disappeared… anyone know where he is?

Another shameless plug for Zdenka’s site - she’s taken literally thousands of photos since being here. Here’s one of her for a change.

The team briefing for the first task was the usual stuff - lots of confusion, then a mass of questions, some really inane, but the message was conveyed in the official language of the competition (broken English). Deck take-off, then fly through 4 boxes looking for markers, then a predicted speed leg, then a photo spotting leg for churches, then more predicted groundspeed until a deck landing. If the task was complicated, then the scoring system is even more so, currently the scores are being re-issued due to the errors. Most team members did OK, although Matt and Jeremy suffered an engine failure - the big end bearing let go, but they managed a good landing in a very undulating field. So the team sprang into action again, they were picked up and brought back, then everyone mucked in to change the engine over - yes, Matt and Jeremy had brought a spare 582 with them, originally bought off Ebay! Paul test flew it last night and it’s since performed faultlessly in the next task.

Now the competing has started, the mood has changed a bit, although we are all still having a good time in the evenings. Two of David’s work colleagues have turned up to do the cooking - Naomi and Emma, who have since taken over the kitchen duties from the Chuckle brothers. They’ve settled in well and seem to be enjoying spending their holiday looking after 25 flyers… at least that’s what I think Naomi said after the 5 or so beers she’d sucked down…

The day ended with precision landings, starting at 1800 and the excellent marshal organisation (headed by Arnold, ex-Army) meant that it was all over by 2000, then the briefing for Monday’s flying…

Naomi and Emma - doing a cracking job looking after us all.

Following his minor mishap, David Hadley and Jay Madhvani’s son Saleem drove to Calais to meet David’s wife who had travelled over on the ferry, in order to get a new wing and other spares. Apart from a likely speeding ticket around the Paris ringroad, all went well and they got back in time for Hadders to fly the first task - and he scored some points too. A real team effort to get him back in the air.

Message for Sue Keene; Rob and Rees are behaving themselves, Rees is definitely not playing silly beggars on the go-ped.

Opening ceremony

All the competitors were bussed into town and gathered on a small square in the very pretty and picturesque old town of Nördlingen. We were then led the short way to the square before church ‘Daniel’ (I don’t think it was named in honour of our team leader!) for the team presentations and speeches… and how the speeches went on! There were local dignitaries, then someone who must have been the tourist officer for Nördlingen, then a very rousing speech from the President of the German Aero Club (”We need our airspace! Comrades, gather together for the fight for our rights” or something like that), then a very short few words from Tomas Backman (Jury President). Wolfgang and I were stood on stage along with a bunch of blokes in suits, and while one of the longer speeches was dragging on, I clearly heard him utter a rather fluent chain of English swearwords. Maybe he should have set a ‘total speech time’ for that task! No more words, just a load of pictures of the team.

Anita Holmes, Brad Wagenhauser

Chris Saysell, Chris Wills

Claire Wills, David (Team Leader) Daniel

Jay Madhvani, Jeremy Bolten

James ‘Lipinskinator’ Lipinski, Matt Botten

Ollie Neece, Owain ‘You can’t print that’ Johns

Paul Dewhurst, Paul Welsh

Rob Grimwood, Rees Keene

Rob Keene, Simon Baker

Lastly, Richard ‘Sandalman’ Rawes

It’s nearly 4pm and we are getting ready to go into town for a parade through the streets, followed by a reception with the mayor! Quick update beforehand.

There were two forced landings this morning near the airfield. One was a Polish visitor whose plane was trashed, unfortunately the other was David Hadley. At around 200ft he sensed rough running so decided to put down on the end of the runway, which was coming to an end all too quickly. He managed to land on the tarmac but the heavy landing was too much, the plane and wing were damaged. Hadders has jumped in his car and is currently driving back to England to pick up a new wing and some other spares. He’s asked Wolfgang for the last start number for the first task, and he expects to fly in it.

We’ve had the first task briefing - a complicated affair with predicted groundspeed, flying in a series of boxes looking for markers, then finding churches from photos, topped off with deck takeoffs and landings. Lots of confusion in the British tent as to what exactly is going on, maybe that particular fog will lift later. There’s no fog on the airfield though. We had rain, now it is back to hot and sweaty.

The team kitchen!

There was some excitement yesterday, not least the few of us who made the trip into town and the night life, getting home after 3am. Blurgh. I also got a quick flight in, taking Zdenka up so she could get some airborne photos. We weren’t quick enough to get a pic of the near miss we had - While at 1200ft I sensed something over my left shoulder, just enough time to see a military jet at 90 degree bank and pulling like fury to avoid us. It missed us by a genuine 10ft, then nearly deafened us with the engine roar afterwards. It was clear the pilot had not seen us until very late, since he flew a slow circle around us to see what he so nearly hit.

Let’s hope that’s all the unpleasant excitement we’re going to get this week…

Mid-morning nap for one person who might have overdone it the night before (not me, I hasten to add!)

Some pictures to make up for the last few days.

Robbie and Rees Keene’s Raven tailfin

Paul Welsh and Paul Dewhurst talking heavy tactics.

The very efficient weighing station.

Wolfgang Lintl, Championship Director

A very dodgy looking tango bottle, used as a header tank.

The flags in front of the clubhouse, and the parking area behind. More another time…

Today was the day that things started to happen. In the background the registration of teams continued, planes were weighed and the organisers were running around, checking scoring systems, administrative stuff and thinking about tasks.

Competitors were up in time for an 0900 start for the practice task, and many of the British team took part. We’ve got the scores back already, and confusion still reigns as to who actually scored what. On first reading, Chris & Claire Wills did well in their Escapade, beating Paul Dewhurst and Ollie Neece in their Skyranger, but Paul has been pretty vocal with questions regarding the validity of the scores. This is the point of the practice task - it is not really for the pilots, since they are all supposed to be of an international standard already, it is more for the organisers and stewards to get themselves ready for the competition. One jury member is here already, and he and I were able to point out some of the mistakes in the preparations, but then that is why we are here. I’m pretty confident that the comp for real will be OK.

Apart from the practice task this morning, there has not been much flying due to a huge CuNim and thunder threatening to disrupt procedures, then we had practice (dead stick) spot landings in the evening. Jan (the jury member) pointed out to me that the Brits were scoring higher than most other teams, which is encouraging. Grimwood/Saysell probably scored 200, as did Dewhurst/Neece, but the real stars were Paul Welsh and Jamie ‘Lipinskinator’ Lipinski who greased a fantastic maximum 250 to a spontaneous round of applause. Owain Johns won the crowd pleaser prize - he had to go round due to a local flyer getting in his way, so tried to pull-start his engine. After three pulls he gave up and managed to land very long indeed on the tarmac runway, credit due to some very cool and level-headed flying. The theory goes that he only got down in one piece due to the man-powered flight from all those pull-starts.

Len and Malcolm (AKA the Chuckle Brothers) offered to cook curry so we have been enjoying a very nice meal indeed while getting bitten by the mosquitoes. Team leader David won ‘Comedy moment’ - during yet another rant about thinking for ourselves and taking responsibility, he succeeded in winding a cable tie so tightly round his thumb that he had to cut it off. Do as I say and all that… While I have been banned from reporting about ‘Tricky’ Richard Rawes’ antics I’ll just add that his youngest daughter Holly (aged 2) asked by phone if David has had his children yet. (For those who don’t know him, David would be a very efficient ground anchor in a storm).

Ollie and The Lipinskinator aren’t here with us (it’s 10.30pm in the team tent) since they have gone into town with the two young ladies in the registration office - Fee and Carina, very attractive and probably as interested in our two young’uns as they are in stamp collecting. We’ll see… Friday is the last free flying day before the opening ceremony on Saturday - a posh do in the middle of town followed by a reception with the local mayor.

Up to now the atmosphere in the camp has been good, the odd setback with planes or practice tasks are being put down to experience. We’ll see how the mood changes when the serious competing starts on Sunday. I’ve been busy all day today, so had no time for photos. Here’s a picture of the office ‘girls’.

Carina on the left, and Fee. There are lots more photos of microlights on Zdenka’s site.

Another day in the heat of the German sun… There are many more competitors here now, but still not all the French team has arrived. The Brits spent the day practicing tasks, doing circuits and measuring fuel burn - the airfield is at 1300ft so take off rolls are longer, fuel efficiency is worse and all the pre-prepared fuel burn graphs need to be recalculated.

The weather was fun today, it started off hot and sticky (as per the last few days) but then the clouds built up and threatened a storm. Rob Grimwood and Chris Saysell flew into a large CuNim and spent 20 minutes engine off climbing 1000ft in height before a huge lightening bolt scared them off and they sped back home. It didn’t actually rain but the humidity is high and it’s still warm now at 11pm.

Competitors were given their first taste of what is to come - the German organisers gave us details of the practice task for tomorrow, a simple predicted groundspeed flight, with a few organisational wrinkles in for good measure. It should all come good in time for the first real task on Sunday. The Germans seem to be on top of things, we’ll have to see if their relative inexperience in organising international tasks affects the competition for real.

One of the hangars was turned into a weighing station, since every plane must be weighed to check it meets the 300kg (single seat) or 450kg (dual seat) weight limit (plus BRS if fitted). One or two were close, especially a BMW powered trike with a 115kg pilot. Fortunately the UK team wasn’t left out in the fattist stakes - a certain current world champion weighed in at just below three figures…

Another correction to a previous blog entry - Richard Rawes’ engine has not yet blown up (sorry Jeannette!), although he took it apart today in order to find the cause of an errant oil pressure reading… only to find it was an electrical fault with the gauge. It’s only a matter of time before the engine blows, Richard, so stop nagging me to change what I wrote!

Morale is high in the camp, we all drove the mile or so into the very pretty Old Town of Nördlingen for dinner, and are now sat in the team tent swapping jokes and laughing. Hadley’s having delusions of height (he’s 5ft 6in tall), he must have drunk one too many of the local beers since he now believes he once had a girlfriend. Let’s hope his aims of getting some points in the comp are slightly more realistic.

Early start tomorrow, practice task first take-off is at 9am. Below is a picture of the old town of Nördlingen taken by Robbie Keene’s phone camera.

This is a special message for Dawn Dewhurst, currently incubating a future comps pilot, due the end of September.

We’re all missing you, Dawn, especially Paul who walks off somewhere quiet whenever you call. It’s not the same here without you, and we don’t mean there isn’t anyone to do the washing up :O)

Take care, see you soon xxxx

We have registered the team:

Fixed wing

Paul Dewhurst & Ollie Neece (Skyranger 912S)
Chris & Claire Wills (Escapade 912)

Flex single seat

Richard Rawes (Chaser 508)
Dave Hadley (Chaser 508)
Owain Johns (Pegasus Q 462)

Flex dual seat

Rob Grimwood & Chris Saysell (Tanarg 912S)
Paul Welsh & James Lipinski (GTE Kiss 450 582)
Jeremy Bolton & Matt Botten (Quantum 582)
Rob & Rees Keene (Raven 912)
Simon Baker & Anita Holmes (Pegasus Quik GT450)
Jay Madhvani & Brad Wagenhauser (Pegasus Quik GT450)

Rob Keene and his son Rees are still to arrive since they are visiting friends nearby. Simon Baker and Anita Holmes are driving down later in the week. Len Tanner and Malcolm Finch have come along in their Skyranger 912, I flew my Escapade 912 over, and Dave Daniel is team manager, having flown his Tanarg iXess 912S.

I’ll take photos of the team members in their team t-shirts on Saturday at the opening ceremony.