Goodbye Dubnica, we will miss you!

The four of us were so relieved to have got all our flights out of the way on Friday thanks to the fabulous weather.

This meant we could get a proper night's sleep on Friday night after a meal and a few drinks at the local pizzeria. Saturday was the closing ceremony and the Slovakians sure know how to put on a party. After the French were loaded up with all the medals, an airshow kicked off featuring a selection of WWII aircraft flying a brilliantly choreographed dogfight complete with bombs and machine guns. Following that a delicious dinner was served with unlimited amounts of wine, beer and slivovitz (a sort of plum brandy). A rock band fired up and the party got wild and though I have only fairly blurry memories of it. But I do remember that the machine gun from the Russian Polikarpov had somehow found it way onto the dance floor and was being fired into the air. The sort of thing you accept at the time, but afterwards wonder if you dreamt it.

We left with the party in full flow and discovered the next day that many of the airport restaurant staff only got 2 hours sleep before returning to serve us pilots all over again in the morning. 

We spent sunday morning packing our aircraft and fuelling our aircraft ready for the flight to Karlovy Vary our first stop on the journey back to the UK. We said our farewells after lunch and set off, remembering to fly over our hotel in Dubnica en route to thank them for a lovely stay. The flight to Karlovy Vary was probably one of the greatest flying experiences of my life as we followed valleys and rivers through the Slovakian and Czech countryside. Upon arrival we got a taxi to our hotel on a hill overlooking the airport to one side and the town of Karlovy Vary on the other.

We decided to explore KV in the evening and after a splendid meal in a little restaurant we wandered through town and marvelled at the sheer number of grand hotels and jewellers. There is a lot of Russian money being poured into this place... We set off again on Monday morning stopping off again at Koblenz for lunch and then through Belgium to the coast north of Cap Gris Nez. The weather was slowly deteriorating and we were glad to be able to see land the other side of the Channel as we coasted out. We flew along the cliffs at Dover (another amazing experience) and on down to Lydd where we landed, jumped out and experienced British weather at it's best. Windy, freezing cold and wet...! After a farewell coffee and some form filling (the only time we had our passport checked since leaving the UK!) we each set off for our respective homes. As I write this memories of the competition are still very fresh. We saw some excellent flying, made new friends, learnt a hell of a lot and had a thoroughly amazing time... Thanks to Pavol and his team for a well organised event at a great venue, with perfect weather.... hard to beat I would imagine.

Free Unknown 2 - Friday

Friday saw the last day of flying and the 2nd unknown got underway in the morning with David J flying 1st out of the team followed by John then me then Paul. This sequence was easier for us in terms of height loss, but was still a phenomenally difficult sequence to get through cleanly, with a 3 out 270 roller from inverted immediately following a devilishly complicated French figure - a 2x8 opp 3/4 push up half loop - 4x8 opp double roll. It was just too much for some. We watched with glee several people lose it completely on the roller. The smile was soon to be wiped off my face, however...!

David J flew a clean flight, but still a little too high for the judges liking. John again elected to fly the French sequence and despite a lovely flight, got hammered for an over rotation on a 4x8. My flight went okay until the last two figures. I had a moment with the roller where my brain told my right foot to hit the rudder and my hand to push the stick to the right. But my hand had other ideas and I started the wrong way. I instantly corrected, but by then had got a little behind in the turn and never really caught up. A bit of a no no on a 39k figure. Fortunately we had put that fig last so any error wouldn't carry through into the next figure.

Having got himself psyched up with a determination to banish the demons of the last couple of flights, Paul set off on what was to be perhaps the most bizarre competition flight experience of his illustrious career. He ran into the box, performed a warm up humpty, then rolled inverted to check the inverted systems. The aircraft's inverted oil system performed as it should, but Paul's inverted stomach system failed somewhere during the first or second push and the contents of his stomach were forced, at high pressure, all over the canopy. Unsure of the penalty for landing, Paul carried on with his flight. It was quite remarkable that he could fly at all under the circumstances, but his flight was clean, aggressive and largely error free. However, the distraction of vomit floating around the cockpit caused him to substitute a 2x4 for a half roll in figure 1.

 A hard zero ensued, which caused his score to plummet. That evening we all enjoyed a well deserved beer and reflected on our flights. We came to the conclusion that it was our sequence construction and positioning that was letting us down more than our overall flying (though there is much room for improvement there too!). Although they are excellent pilots, we saw the French make several small errors that did not get reflected in their scores. But we realised that they could hide those errors from the judges by clever positioning. This was confirmed by the French coach, Coco, who gave us a few pointers which should help us in the future. John's status as French CAP 232 driver also encouraged Coco to give him several tips which he was able to pass on to us. But we will have to wait until next year. As a team we came 5th behind the French, Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Not a bad start for the fledgling team and we plan to apply all we have learned to our training over the next year.

Free Unknown 1

After having submitted the figures, each team can design a sequence using the ten figures from each team, plus up to four simpler linking figures (each with a score of just 6k).

Part of the skill of sequence design is fitting the figures together so that the sequence flows naturally from one figure to another, retaining energy throughout and enabling good positioning in the box. We found that in our early attempts to design a sequence based on the figures submitted, the main challenge was to work out how not to be flying in ground effect after the first 4 or 5 figures. We came to the conclusion that a high start was required. But as it turns out we were not entirely correct. John avoided much of the height issues by fying the french sequence, designed around the CAP 232, the aircraft flown by the French team and John.
Paul put in the best flight out of all of us, with a near perfect outside square loop thrown in for good measure. But he, like the rest of us, was hammered for positioning, as we had to start at 3800' to avoid planting our aircraft into the turf. We also started to realise that the judges claimed they couldn't see us if we were any further back than centre box and penalised us if too low or close. This meant that our flying should be conducted in an area of sky just 500m high x 300m deep x 1000m wide, smaller than we had always thought it seems.
John was second in Team GBR behind Paul with David and I following closely behind.

Hot and high!!

We have now all flown the Q programme and our Free sequences. It has all been a real eye opener for us and much has been learnt about how we need to fly to please the judges.

Paul was first to fly the Q with John, David J and I following. Our results placed us about middle of the field which put us in groups two and three for the free which we flew yesterday. John was first up and put in, what looked to us, a very aggressive and stylish flight. Unfortunately the judges didn't fully agree and awarded him 68%.

Then Paul flew. After having been told that we have been a little far away for the judges liking, he flew right up the judges noses all the way and looked pretty sharp, however, the judges clearly did not like having to pick bits of Edge 360 out of their nostrils and awarded Paul 70% minus 2 lows which took his score down to the late 50s. But after checking the scoresheets we found that the low penalties had been over counted somewhat and his score was rectified to 64.5% (still not quite Tomlinson territory).
I flew a clean sequence, in about the right place it seems as far as the judges were concerned and landed 73% and David J pushed himself to the top of the Team GBR pile with a very respectable 74%.

Next up is the Free Unknown. A sequence cobbled together like a puzzle from 10 figures (one figure submitted by each team), plus 4 linking figures of our choice. Of course the teams try to snooker each other with difficult figures, so you end up with a sequence where nearly every figure is very challenging to fly.
We think Paul and John will fly today. We will publish the sequence on the blog as soon as we can put it in a pdf format.

Now the fun really begins

The contest got underway today following a briefing from Contest Director Pavol Kavka during which we drew our numbers for the flying order. I was hoping for a number somewhere in the teens or early twenties so that I could get the Q out of the way, but not be one of the first pilots to fly. In the end Paul drew 24th, David J and John 43rd and 45th with me the last to fly in 54th.  So not a bad draw.


After a few false starts the warm up pilot took to the skies to allow the judges to calibrate their eyes. The warm up pilot flies lines along the box in both axes at the base height (200 metres) and disqualification height (100 metres) to show the judges what these heights look like from where they are sitting. If any pilot is deemed to have flown below these heights in the competition they will be penalised accordingly.

Then it was time for the first pilot drawn to fly - a German by the name of Holger Kwoczek flying a Zlin 50. We all really felt for him. It's not easy being the first up, but he made a fair stab at the sequence, though inevitably received fairly average scores. After 2 more flights things were brought to a halt for the day in time for the opening ceremony. A quick return to the hotel to change into our whistles and we were back in time for the Pilot's parade across the apron led by the charming girls of the local Slovakian traditional dance troupe. We were treated to speeches and warm wishes by the contest officials, music and dancing, and an airshow which began with a series of skydivers dropping out of an ancient (and very Russian) Antonov AN-2 and finished with a very tidy display by a Yakovlev YAK-52. Dinner was then served and after a plateful of delicious food, a couple of non-alcoholic beers (well... there is a strict anti-doping policy), we were ready to toddle of home to bed.

Check out the video of the opening ceremony here: http://www.eaac2011.sk/index.php/sk/video_show/1

We have heard various, conflicting weather forecasts for tomorrow, but if all is well flying will start again following an 8am briefing.


Paul will be the first of our team to fly and the rest of us will rally around him to support him as he gets himself ready. If the weather holds we may all get to fly tomorrow, but with 60 pilots to get through and an average of 5 flights an hour, it seems unlikely that I will even if John and David J do.


We returned to our hotel to find a Slovakian wedding in full flow. As I write the strains of The Birdie Song can be clearly heard wafting through my bedroom window!


More news will follow tomorrow, weather permitting.


Goodnight.
David T

Sussing out the competition

Today at Dubnica we had the opportunity to fly in the aerobatic box for 15 minutes each. It was a chance to orientate ourselves and to get some last minute practice.

Paul and I marked out a box on the tarmac in front of our hangar for the team to perform our walk throughs. We were pleased to find that the real box was equally well marked and very clear from the air. But we discovered that the mountainous terrain nearby meant that the horizon line was less clearly defined than we are used to, so we must remember to compensate for that in our flights.

We all flew well enough and John put in a particularly polished performance, prompting the French team coach, Coco, to stride over to give his Gallic approval.

An early night will be in order tonight.  The next time we fly will be for real…!

Wish us luck!

David T

Most? Excellent!

We have just arrived in Dubnica Nad Vahom having spent the past 4 days at the amazing Lestiste Most airfield in the Czech Republic. Most is an interesting town, having been moved lock, stock and barrel several miles for mining purposes in the 1970s. The airfield sits among a series of open cast mines which look like huge quarries, many of which are disused and have now been allow to fill with water to create lakes of various sizes.

We found the place to be an aerobatic pilot's paradise. Imagine a 1000 metre grass strip with a restaurant which serves home cooked meals, pleasant accommodation just a few steps away from the hangar, a family which cannot do enough to help you, beer at 50p per 500ml, cheap fuel, your own room and three delicious meals a day for £12, a marked out aerobatic box, no other traffic or residents to spoil your fun and a barbeque in the evening with vodka chasers... That is Most.

Our daily routine went something like this:
Breakfast
Aeroplanes out of the hangar
Fly the unknown sequence as discussed and briefed the evening before
Lunch (proper cooked 3 course lunch)
Figure training (where we fly particularly tricky figures and start to choose what could be our submitted figure for the Free Unknown)
Tea break
One more flight if desired to fly the Q or our free sequences

Each day was tiring, but very rewarding with huge progress made by every pilot.

Today we reluctantly said our farewells today to our amazing hosts. Special thanks to all of the family, Misa & Markéta, and to Yadislav for making the whole thing possible for us. We WILL return to Most one day soon.

Our flight to Dubnica was very pleasant with the landscape becoming more pastoral and Germanic, as well as more mountainous. The last few miles as we approached Dubnica from the north were through a wooded valley which gave us all the feeling of really flying, as if in a dream.

Soon we were downwind to land at Dubnica as aeroplanes zoomed around the Box, taking advantage of their 15 minutes permitted practice overhead the airfield. Our turn will come tomorrow.

Our first impression was that this was very different to a domestic comp. And we spied some very serious looking aerobatic hardware in the hangars; There were Extra 330s aplenty as well as the odd SU-31 to ram home the point that there are a large proportion of pilots here who mean very serious business... but fortunately so do we.

Upon landing we were greeted by (Lord) Nick and (Lady) Jen Buckenham of Sawtry. It seemed weird that we had come all this way and Nick and Jen were there as if we had just arrived at Fenland. I was only surprised not to see their caravan in the background...!

Tomorrow will be a day for sussing out the competition and having our fifteen minutes of familiarisation. Then things get really serious on Saturday as the Q (Qualifying) programme starts... Mummy!!

David T

And we're off!

All our planning and preparation have led us to this point. We are finally on our way to Slovakia for the 7th European Advanced Aerobatic Championships!

This morning Paul, David J, Tom Bennet (ferrying John's CAP 232) and I fought our way through typically crap British weather to get to the desolate Lydd, which really does feel like the edge of Britain - with Dungeness power station looming on the horizon and only sea beyond.

The wind was blowing a 'hooley' on landing, but the good news was that the weather to the east was better and the 'hooley' would be right up our chuff all the way to Koblenz in Germany - our refuelling and lunch stop.

After a bit of faffing, a lot of paper work, a very welcome phonecall from Airbox to unlock my GPS (a problem sorted overnight by the ever resourceful David J) and various interpretations of breakfast we climbed into our aircraft for the last time on British soil.

Crossing the channel - Tom and David T
are down there somewhere!

We took off in a sort of loose formation and headed east out over the English channel towards our first waypoint - Traca - south of Calais. David J deftly handled the radio while the rest of us tried to keep up with the numerous frequency changes enroute.

Refuelling at Lydd

Soon we were in Belgian airspace squeezing between control zones with David's workload increasing by the minute. All that the rest of us had to do was keep station and (in Paul's case) roll the odd fag. As we crossed into Germany, we were able to shake off the constant radio chatter and change to our own 'chat' frequency upon which much merriment and persiflage ensued. We enjoyed the scenery, admired the castles and endless forests and quietly hummed the theme tune from The Dambusters.

Koblenz

Two hours after departure we arrived at Koblenz, a delightful airfield among the hills to the south east of Bonn. After congratulating ourselves on flying four toy aeroplanes to the continent under our own steam, we refuelled and ate the most delicious 'Greek' lunch of barbecued pork kebab with tzatziki and chips, whilst resisting Paul's suggestion that we order "four large beers".

We filed our flight plan then hopped back into our aircraft, but not before handing out Team GBR postcards to the small crowd of families that had gathered to observe 'zeez humorous Engleesh and zere funny leetle Flugzeug" (or at east that's what I imagine they would have said). Anyway they all cheerily waved us off as we departed for the Czech Republic and our training base at Most.

This time Paul was in the lead and his first job was to show us some of the German countryside (and radio masts) at closer quarters. We rarely climbed above 1000 feet and occasionally veered slightly this way and that to look at points of local interest. Germany looked very pretty from this perspective. Paul then changed tactic and climbed us up to the 5000' cloudbase to see if we could gain a few extra knots from the thermals in addition to the helpful 20-30kt tailwind. Whether it worked or not I don't know, but it was fun skimming along just under the cumulus clouds.

As we crossed the border into the Czech republic the landscape seemed to alter dramatically. Pretty villages gave way to small towns with concrete buildings painted in gaudy colours. Gone were the endless forests to be replaced by vast open cast mines and coal fired power stations.

We called up Most Airfield only to find that they had signed off for the evening and instead were preparing us a supper of breaded veal and potatoes smothered in butter. As we landed and taxied in we spotted 4th team member John Askew and his wife Christelle who had driven all the way from Lincolnshire in one day and were waiting to greet us as we arrived. We were met also by our hosts for the next few days, an extended family of mother, father, Uncle, grandparents, daughter and friends. We put the aircraft to bed and were shown to our basic, but spotless rooms which overlooked the runway…heaven!

Our hosts. Vodka just out of shot...

Before we could unpack our food was on the table and ice cold beers were trickling down our throats. The family then invited us to a BBQ behind the hangar where we were introduced to the local sausage (delicious) and, of course, the local vodka.

So we made it. A big thank you must go to David J for organising so much of the 'stuff' that is required for a trip like this. The route, the permissions, the training base, the hotels, our team apparel, everything really. Thank you David!

The forecast for tomorrow looks poor for the morning so we have asked for a lie in. Breakfast at 0900 instead of 0700! 

Dobrou Noc (goodnight)

David T

Final UK Training Camp at RAF Cranwell

This weekend saw Team GBR's final training camp in the UK before we set off to Slovakia for the European Advanced Aerobatic Championship.

We were very fortunate to be able to use RAF Cranwell as our base for the training which meant we could fly in the overhead with a marked box. The weather Gods were kind to us and we achieved an average of three flights a day. The general routine was to brief first thing in the morning and discuss what we each wanted to do. Snap rolls featured heavily tempered by achieving ever greater precision in some of the less physically stressful figures. A great deal of progress was made and by the Sunday our flying was looking very much sharper.

Devilish unknown sequences were hatched with several challenging snap rolls and lots of negative G!! Our plan was to fly figures that were even more complex than ones that we might have to face in Slovakia.

All flights were videoed which allowed us to analyse our performance in a debrief at the end of the day. We found the video helped a lot in ensuring we were achieving the correct amount of pitch initiation and separation in snap rolls and hesitations in point rolls. We were also able capture comments made from the ground critique.

Huge thanks to the RAF and RAF Cranwell Flying Club for all their help and for allowing us to use their wonderful airfield and facilities. Particular thanks go to fellow aerobatic pilot, Sgt. Phil Burgess who invited us to Cranwell in the first place and helped to make the whole weekend possible, including laying on accommodation, food and drink and even musical entertainment!

We depart the UK on 7th August. Our route takes us from Lydd to Koblenz in Germany for fuel (and lunch!) and then on to the Czech Republic where we will stay for a few days to train again as a team in the week running up to the competition itself.

We will be reporting regularly from the competition. Wish us luck!

David
Team GBR

The Adventure Begins!

Aerobatic pilots John Askew, David Jenkins, Paul Tomlinson and David Thomson have been chosen by the British Aerobatic Association to represent Great Britain at the European Advanced Aerobatic Championships in Slovakia this August.

We will perform sequences of complex aerobatic figures in front of crowds of spectators as well as a panel of international aerobatic judges at the prestigious event.

Pilots will each have to fly a total of four sequences each made up of 10 – 15 manoeuvres that are scored on their precision and presentation. 

But like most motorsports, the fast and furious pace means that even small mistakes can result in elimination. We will be flying to the limits of the aircraft as well as to our own physical and mental limits. With speeds in excess of 230mph and G forces reaching 10 times our own body weight; it is going to be a tough environment. 

The team has attended a number of training camps with top coaches, including British No.1 Gerald Cooper.

This blog will chart our progress as we prepare for the event, fly our aircraft from Britain to Slovakia, train in the Czech Republic and compete against 75 other pilots from all over Europe.

Wish us luck!

David T