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UK Nationals - Haverfordwest 13th/14th October This was a re-run of the original competition that had been scheduled for 30th June/1st July, and subsequently cancelled due to very bad weather. The long range weather forecasts leading up to the event seemed reasonably promising but as the weekend approached things weren't looking so good. Most members arrived on the Friday before the competition to attend the AGM. Unfortunately the new Chairman having made two attempts to fly down which were aborted due to bad weather, was forced to drive down and thus missed the AGM. I feel the start of an IMC rating training coming on! Saturday started misty, with low overcast cloud and a general air of despondency seemed to settle on the airfield. By mid-afternoon there appeared to be no significant improvement and in a bid to save time for Sunday, the flight planning  phase of Nav route 1, except the timing marks (as even Malcolm cannot predict the wind speed and direction for the following day!), was completed. This would mean that the normal flight planning time of 1 hour and 15 minutes before take off would be reduced to 45 minutes. By 4.00pm, members dispersed to their various accommodations, before joining up again at 7.15pm for a get-together Chinese meal at the Dragon and Pearl. The food was excellent, the drinks were flowing and the company convivial! The frustrations of waiting around all day soon evapourated and we all hoped for a more productive on Sunday. Waking up on Sunday morning and looking out of the hotel bedroom window provided a slight glimmer of hope. Although the sky was still grey and overcast, the cloudbase looked slightly higher than the previous day and the drizzle had stopped, hopefully the haze would improve and we'd get the competition complete. Chris Barnes, Barry Pearce and John Marsh in Flight Planning On arrival at the airfield, the weather was still slowly improving and although the visibilty wasn't good enough for the navigation route yet, it was considered fit to undertake the landing competition. Hopefully the visibility would improve enough to allow the nav route to be flown later on. The field of competitors was split into groups of three aircraft, with each group having the circuit to themselves to conduct their 4 approaches. The organisers added an extra degree of difficulty by alternating between LH and RH circuits on consectutive approaches and stipulating 500' circuits for the powered approaches and 1000' for the glide approaches. So where as at most competitions all the circuits are conducted in the same pattern and height, thus allowing subsequent approaches to be compensated for from the results of the previous circuit, this luxury was not afforded. However, despite this, some good efforts were put in, with even a few 'zeros' achieved. With the weather slowly improving, the decision was made to attempt Nav route 1. Following the flight planning, competitors started setting off at 5 minute intervals. However, halfway along leg 1 (to the east of the area) areas of low cloud forced some competitors to abandon the effort. Some of the more experienced (and cunning) pilots routed around the bad weather and rejoined the route on time, from turn point 2. With the rest of course routeing out to the west and eventually north from Haverfordwest, better weather conditions were encountered, enabling those pilots to successfully complete the course. With time running out it was not going to be possible to complete a second nav route, so the Nationals was to be decided on the landing and nav route 1 scores. After the organisers had finalised all the scoring, Chris Barnes was declared the winner, with Rodney Blois runner up and John Marsh hard on their heels in 3rd place. With the competition points added to the League table, the top 3 in the league mirrored the results from the Nationals. Congratulations to Chris Barnes on a highly successful year. |
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