THE BPPA UK NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS RAF MARHAM 28th/29th September 2008
Norfolk, generally thought of as an agricultural county, that is sparsely populated and with large prairie like arable farms with each field covering vast acres of flat ground. Not knowing the area too well it sounds like it should be quite simple to navigate over especially for someone coming from the rolling hills of the West Country where you can’t see over the next hill. Well no, first of all there are far more woods than are shown on the map and there appears to be a far greater number of small settlements strung along country lanes that makes accurate map reading nigh on impossible especially when there is poor forward visibility.
And visibility was a big issue at this year’s National Precision Flying Championships held at RAF Marham over the last weekend in September. A few competitors, including one Irish team and one Swedish entry, arrived on Friday afternoon in glorious autumnal weather but the clear skies overnight turned into dense fog by morning at the airbase. Periodically on Saturday morning Martin Reynolds’ phone would ring and an anxious competitor waiting to fly in would get the same response. It’s still about 50m visibility and there’s no sign of any improvement. All very frustrating as just a few miles to the south the sun had shone almost from dawn.
To fill in the time we were shown the station museum, had an RAF style briefing and lunch. The Irish contingent disappeared, where were they? Obvious really, they had found the barroom at the rear of the clubhouse! Well into the afternoon the first signs of a clearance appeared, the local rook population took to the air waking us all up from an afternoon nap. Flight planning could start and the first navigation test was under way. This route, predominantly towards the Northern part of the county would have been very scenic but with horizontal visibility at about five miles, total effort had to be put into keeping on track and on time. Everyone found the last two or three legs with westerly headings to be extremely tough going as they were flown into a setting sun. That evening at dinner in the Spread Eagle pub we all felt that at least the championship was underway and even though many of us had struggled in the poor conditions we would do better on Sunday.
Up bright and early for a Sunday morning, Martin organised us into three groups for the spot landing test and as we were underway before the flying conditions were ready for the gliders we had unrestricted use of the airspace. That said, I did notice whilst helping to judge the groups ahead of me, that the sheer size of Marham’s 24 runway caused many regular competitors some problems in their assessment of how far out to fly their circuits. On a calm day when it is usual to find pilots landing way after the spot line, quite a few of the more expert members of the BPPA were landing very short on their glide approaches. Luckily I had spotted this trend and made quite sure I was not caught by the same optical trap.
The landings over it was straight into flight planning for the second navigation , this time a route that took us more to the south and west including some of the Fenland areas. Autumn is sugar beet time and one leg took us over the top of a factory not far from Marham. For a mile or two the sweet smell of beet processing was an unofficial aid to navigation! Luckily visibility was much better than on the previous route and I had no periods of ‘temporarily uncertain of position’ and could return to the airfield reasonably confident that I had no ‘unseen’ time checks.
The computer programme worked and churned out the results by 1500hrs, and those of us with long return flights were away in good time to get home before dark. All in all a good competition weekend and many thanks go to Martin Reynolds and his team of helpers, Darren Howett, Simon Morris, Rhona and Ian Hodson and finally to the Station Commander for allowing us to use the airfield. Also congratulations to Chris Barnes on retaining his title of UK Champion.
Howard Cox