The British Microlight Team

It is now !

2010-08-15T14:11:00.003+02:00

After no flying on Thursday Fridays forecast was not much better, there was a small weather window in the morning to enable some timed spots, this did lead to much nervous nous beforehand, especially if you were in a medal position. The windy conditions did catch some pilots out however everybody held there nerve to consolidate and hold positions. That was it bar any protests, for once there were none at all and this has to be down to the good organisation and clear tasks. Therefore the party on Friday could begin.

Saturday was the official closing ceremony and this was another very prompt and well organised event. British national anthem played three out of four times is hugely satisfying. Results still oin official site - click on links below.

WL1 -click for scores

A very dominant performance from Richard to win Gold -look at the points margin which is quite considerable. David Hadley's position reflects a harsh gate penalties on the last navigation task dropping him from a certain medal to a lower position. Unfortunately because of the no fly on the Thursday the two nav tasks planned would have given pilots the chance to claw back some points.

WL2

Rob and John scored a convincing gold in WL2- favourites all week they gained a useful lead in the two more machine orientated tasks - the Triangle and the spiders web, The triangle being a task made for a Quik R, AL1 refugee Paul Welsh did incredibly well to score a popular Bronze in the flylight Tanarg ably assisted by 'spotter Proctor'; Frank and Emily his daughter in a standard Quantum did very well with some fantastic scores in the nav tasks, he was just pipped by former champion Simon to come 7th and 6th respectively. Neil and Alan just missed out on a diploma with a consistent performance in their Blade. Well done to Laurie and Mary who learnt a lot in the week and really needed Thursday and Friday to start putting into practice what they had learnt -fourth overall in the triangle economy task really demonstrates potential and Laurie's last spot of the comp was an absolute peach - I don't think I have ever seen a Quik stop in so little distance- 25metres ! !

AL2

An incredibly tight class and one which was wide open, David Broom once again won a silver ably assisted by Aircraft owner Chris Levings. Chris and Claire Wills once again did well to come sixth and newcomers to this class Dave Robbins and Michel Carnet did well to secure 9th in this competitive class. With the weather being bad on the Thursday and Friday this class would have been worth watching for some significant changes if the tasks had gone ahead.

All of this resulted in TEAM GOLD for the British team which clearly demonstrates the strength and depth to the team squad.

Well done to all the competitors in what was a fair and hard fought competition with a strong spirit running through it. The organisation was first class and very efficient and the tasks had the right balance which clearly tested pilot skill. Most pilots flew 12-14 hours in 5 days with the last two days spoiling what was planned.

Our team thanks to Len and Malcolm who did a superb job as always and to David Daniels team manager.

Well done to the organising team and in particular thanks to Rob Hughes, RMH, Jeremy and of course Paul Dewhurst and the FLYLIGHT team, Sywell was a fabulous venue which really showed the rest of the Europe how to run and organise a comp in style.

Thursday- heavy cloud, no flying - the crowds are on the pitch, they think its all over

2010-08-12T20:47:00.000+02:00

A disappointing day, weather forecast was less than positive and the right call was made, coaches were booked and teams were given the opportunity to go to Old Warden and visit the museum. If you are in a medal position then pilots are doing a rain dance, however if not then you are hoping for a miracle and a better forecast tomorrow. Depending on weather windows there may be spot landings in morning in classes, if not it may all be over........

Weds night

2010-08-12T20:37:00.000+02:00

After a hard days flying the Italian team kindly offered to cook for all of the competitors. A good night followed!

Thursday morning

2010-08-12T08:35:00.002+02:00

Tuesday was a fuel limited task with pilots having to fly the largest area triangle possible on a limited amount of fuel. After much calculation and head scratching the best strategy was to fly downwind on the speed leg and then have an long two legs back to the finish point, all the time thinking about the fuel and getting back to the airfield. British Team pilots again did well with Richard and David coming 1st and 2nd in a task made for a chaser, Rob in the Quik R also produced a rather big triangle in a Quik R task also.

Yesterday was a spiders web task which involved flying to as many turnpoints in 2 hours, string at the ready pilots had to plan as quickly as possible to enable the longest time in the air. Good scores were again achieved leaving things finally poised into Thursdays task- a trip to Old Warden - the weather does mean that this could be interesting with an early start before the forecast showers arrive.

Plenty to fly for and plenty to loose !

Monday night party

2010-08-10T13:51:00.001+02:00

The organisers put on a party last night in the hangar. The bar was set up for us to serve ourselves, so it was funny watching Czechs and Lithuanians getting to grips with an English beer pump - lots of froth to begin with. It started off quite quietly, a few videos on the TV and a big Jenga in the corner.

Then the music was turned up with the event organiser Rob acting as DJ. These parties are aimed at bringing together the teams who otherwise might not socialise between their different tented villages. The atmosphere was excellent with a lot of old friends getting together, as well as new ones being made.

Most of the competitors went to bed early which left the assistants and visitors to start the dancing. Chief Marshal Jeremy's wife Lorraine was jigging away with Dawn Dewhurst, being egged on by DJ Rob... who seemed to be enjoying himself too.

It was over by midnight, though the pilots were already long asleep, ready for Tuesday's flying - an economy task, trying to fly as big a triangle as possible. Let's hope Grimwood gets some points back... he's currently behind Paul Welsh!

snakes and ladders

2010-08-10T09:19:00.002+02:00

Simple in concept but hard to fly especially in gusty conditions, this involved flying down snakes and up ladders at a pre-declared ground speed, the change from snake to ladder was achieved by identifying a TP photo and then drawing a line to your next start gate, the conditions which were fairly gusty made the task that bit more interesting for the trike pilots and the speed change from one corner to another made for some interesting flight attitudes, going sideways over track gates or just turning into wind to slow down were good tactics for maintaining ground speed. a washing machine day ! Scores again were good for the British team

WL1 - Richard again doing well, David Hadley also proved that a 508 engine will run with no oil, he did comment that he could hear it tinkling whilst flying, fortunately Conrad and Nigel Beale got to work and it looks like a fixed engine will enable him to fly today's task

WL2- Rob and Paul Welsh continued there battle with the Polish pair leading the way - look at the scores and you will see how close the margins are - one mistake and that's it - its only Monday.

AL2 - Robbins and Carnet had a good day and celebrated with 8 mints ! - a long story and Andy Aitkin won the precision landing task in tricky conditions. Chris and Claire also produced another good score. This class is really close.

All set for more fun and games today with a task to really test peoples machine and also there confidence in its fuel burn - the return back to the airfield could result in some 'squeaky bum' moments - more strong winds forecast ...... the planning continues !!

weekend update

2010-08-10T09:14:00.002+02:00

Saturday

After an extremely efficient and quick opening ceremony the competition started with the Spitfire task. The aim was to fly around the outline of a spitfire spotting photos and also the flying at declared groundspeeds and also as fast and slow as possible. This was a fairly straightforward task and did not cause any surprises. If you look the scores for this task but be careful to check you have the latest ones, there have been many revisions! Saturday evening’s briefing was about two tasks the following day, one to get to Sutton Meadows in Cambridgeshire and one to return.

Sunday,

This promised to be a tough day with a lot of flying and probably a high number of points to be lost. The task over to Sutton consisted of a track line to follow with 3 ground speed declaration gates which pilots had to arrive at on their nominated times. Then pilots had to fly a track line which took them around the Cambridgeshire countryside, upon arriving at Sutton Meadows we then had to complete a short landing over a tape. task briefing sheet This task proved to be good fun with 10 photos to spot and a fairly high workload followed by the remainder of the flight into Sutton. Again Sutton Meadows proved to be excellent hosts and after a short rest and lunch the planning for ‘the pipeline’ task started. This was a sequential navigation task which really proved to be tricky, the problem with sequential navigation is that miss one gate and the consequences are dire especially when there was a groundspeed score attached to it!

There were 12 photos in all for this task and as well as marking track lines this was a high workload task. Fo r some pilots in the slower machines this took almost 3 hours so combined with the mornings task it was clear to see why there were some tired faces around after the days flying. At this stage of the week after only two days the pilots had completed 6-7 hours flying and already scores were looking promising for the British team pilots, In WL1 – single seat flex wing Richard has flown consistently well to gain a small lead of the leading Czech pilot with myself and David Hadley in the top six. In WL2 Paul Welsh (AL1 refugee) who only sat in his aircraft for the first time last week) is in 2^nd with Rob snapping at his heels, Frank Hodgson is also in the top 6. In AL2 David Broom is also proving that a last minute change of class and aircraft is not an issue and is well placed. With such consistent flying the team prize scoring is looking promising also.

2010-08-07T08:58:00.002+02:00

Saturdays task

Sunset- let the comp begin !

2010-08-06T22:38:00.000+02:00

Following a lengthy briefing the comp is set to start tomorrow. Hopefully weather permitting we should fly the spitfire task which is similar to yesterdays practice task. Let the comp begin !

That Friday Feeling

2010-08-06T18:17:00.003+02:00

Yesterday was the official practice task and most competitors took chance to calibrate and have a go. The task was relatively simple and involving following disused railway lines and identifying photos. there was also a speed declaration element and also a ground speed. The purpose of the task was to mainly try out procedures and give everything a good run through. As yet the scores are not known but the team had a good day. The evening involved some team members popping off to Sutton Meadows to practice precision.

Friday has been fairly steady, with some flying this morning. There has been some flying and also the odd shower, it is pretty windy at present. Opening ceremony is at 11 tomorrow with tasks in the afternoon. Briefing is tonight at 6pm.

Set up

2010-08-03T15:00:00.000+02:00

The majority of teams have now arrived and set up and preparations continue,just waiting for the vital services to be set up, wireless and the odd bit of power!
There are a few pics of campsite which is starting to take shape.

countdown continues until start date

2010-07-30T10:25:00.002+02:00

Preparations continue for the finalised British team. Most team members are arriving on Sunday/ Monday at Sywell with others arriving later in the week. The team is now finalised after the late changes concerning AL1, this now means that WL1 has two late additions and AL2 one.

for further updates from official site

British Team 2010

2010-07-29T19:50:00.000+02:00

The final team selection:

Single seat flexwing

Owain JOHNS

Richard RAWES

David HADLEY

Paul WELSH

Two seat flexwing

Rob GRIMWOOD & John WAITE

Simon BAKER & Anita HOLMES

Neil KING & Alan WETHERALL

Frank HODGSON & Emily HODGSON

Mark FOWLER & Chloe FOWLER

Laurie HURMAN & Mary RUSSELL

Two seat fixed wing

Chris WILLS & Claire WILLS

David ROBBINS & Michel CARNET

Andrew AIKEN & Barbara AIKEN

David BROOM & Chris LEVINGS

Team Leader

David DANIEL

Team assistants

Len TANNER

Malcolm FINCH

2010-07-29T10:38:00.002+02:00

Frills and spills –ROUND 3

After two luxurious rounds of the BMAA national at Over Farm and Popham the 3^rd round of the nationals took place at Oakley on the Bucks / Oxfordshire

border. The theme for the weekend had been ‘No Frills’ because of the somewhat limited facilities at Oakley in comparison to the previous rounds. The nationals this year have been blessed with fantastic weather and Saturday dawned bright and very hot. First task for the day a precision take off over a 1m tape, a simple test of machine and judgement, having a Quik R would surely mean that you would dominate a competition with one of these hot ships, the hot conditions and the higher take off speeds of the Quik R meant that after this task the somewhat vintage Sluka of David Hadley and Shadow of David Broom lead the way, achieving take offs of 65m and 80m respectively, what followed was a simple ground speed task which enabled competitors to access the following task, in nil wind conditions the level of accuracy was superb and ground speed errors of .1 and .2 were common. Task 3 was a tricky sequential navigation which involved identify photos and changing from inner, middle and outer ‘lanes’

On return to Oakley pilots completed another precision task a precision landing. David Broom once again demonstrated the arrester like qualities of the shadow and stopped in an impressive 30m however he had dropped a wheel at the start of the box and dropped the whole score. Rob Grimwood in Quik R firmly established an early lead scoring 1000mwith his trademark accuracy closely followed by the chasing Mark Fowler in the other Quik R. David Hadley flew extremely well solo to also score 1000.

After lunch the limited fuel task was set which involved collecting a number of known and unknown golf courses oh and two precision landings and also identifying symbols which would be unveiled at the outlandings, simple ? The distance covered with only 17 litres of fuel by the two Quik R’s was phenomenal and really demonstrated what can be achieved when these machines really stretch their legs. Rob and Mark both flew in excess of 100nm, achieving accuracy and precision. Andy Aiken in the Skyranger proved that a different strategy also worked hovering up all the known airfields. After any fuel task always follows a anxious wait to see if the 5 litre safety buffer is still in tact, After flying such a distance the two Quik R’s would be close to call and a uncharacteristic fuel computer error resulted in 1000pts being dropped by Rob, as a result arch –rival Mark in the other Quik R was well placed to take control.

With light winds the evening was another opportunity to complete two more precision tasks. One had a novel challenge – fly from brakes off to a 1000ft and return on a nominated time. Dave Brooo again demonstrated his precision stripes returning within 1 second of his nominated 5min and 5 seconds. Mark on the other hand showed his is still getting to grips with the Quik R at slow speed and completed one two many take offs in an effort to get out of the box, this then resulted in a hasty landing and a zero score, Rob keen to make up for the 1000pt deficit was pleased to see a slight hope of regaining points, David Hadley again showed he has the measure of 3-axis flying and scored more consistent points.

Competition flying is all about losing points not winning them and a misty Sunday morning dawned with Mark in pole position and a deserved victory, in the last 2 comps he has been showing real promise and giving the usually unstoppable Grimwood something to think about. The first task of the day a relatively simple sequential nav resulted in Grimwood clawing back a measly 100 points. An upset was on the cards, one task followed, a duration task with two precision landings which could either increase or decrease your score. Mark with no pressure went off early before the developing storms started to bubble up and all looked promising until the first precision. The Quik R can be a little tricky at low speeds and in gusty conditions Mark looked like he scored a comfortable 200 but unfortunately followed this by running out the box and scoring 0. All the time watched form height by a grinning Rob, victory could now be his with one final precision, on the last landing of the last task. It was not to be, the second uncharacteristic error of the weekend befell the Grimwod team; dropping a wheel outside the box reduced their score by enough of margin to enable the ultra consistent and reliable Hadley to come from behind to score a memorable victory.

As the rain fell Dave Broom came home in Fourth rueing the rusty start to the weekend and Neil King was another impressive 5^th. The flying all weekend was impressive and really demonstrated the current quality and competiveness for the forthcoming Europeans. Thanks again to Len Tanner and Mick Broom for marshalling. Look forward to seeing you at the next round or maybe Sywell in August.

11th FAI European Microlight Championships

2010-07-21T14:52:00.004+02:00

We're getting ready for another adventure - the 11th FAI European Microlight Championships at Sywell aerodrome, Northampton. Read about it at www.emc2010.org.uk and look around Sywell at www.sywellaerodrome.co.uk/

The final touches are being put to the British team; provisional team members are:

WL2: Two seat flexwing

Simon Baker and Anita Holmes
Rob Grimwood and John Waite
Neil King and Alan Weatherall
Frank and Emily Hodgson
Mark and Chloe Fowler
Laurie and Mary Hurman

AL2: Two seat fixed wing

Chris and Claire Wills
Andy and Barbera Aiken
David Robbins Michel Carnet

WL1: Single seat flexwing

Richard Rawes
Owain Johns

AL1: Single seat fixed wing

Dave Broom
David Hadley
Paul Welsh
Nigel Beale

Team leader: David Daniel

It all starts on 2 August with the practice week. Keep checking back here for the latest news...

See you next year!

2007-08-26T22:38:00.001+02:00

Well, the world championships are over for another year, and we think this is the best result we have ever achieved - winning 3 out of the 4 classes, with David grabbing silver in the 4th class. The medal ceremony is over, Paul Dewhurst being the only person on site wearing two medals, and preparations were made for the hangar party. After a very fierce flying competition, it was only natural for a party on a similar level.

The human side of the event came out, people were swapping stories, sharing experiences and planning the next time they would see each other. There may be the odd disagreement during the week, but I am glad to say that yet again the spirit of friendship shone through. Oh, and a few fun and games, like the time the French decided to ambush our photos.

The team are on now their way home, expecting to arrive in the next few days. A job very well done. Look out for the European Championships in 2008, possibly in Poland and make a date to come along to support our team. One question remains though - why was there a 15ft high piece of tree in the hangar this morning?? BONSAI!

Medals!

2007-08-25T19:54:00.001+02:00

Paul Dewhurst and Paul Welsh - World Champions 2 seat fixed wing

Rob Grimwood and Chris Saysell - World Champions 2 seat flexwing

Richard Rawes - World Champion single seat flexwing

David Broom - Silver medal single seat fixed wing

Rob & Rees Keene - Bronze medal 2 seat flexwing

Team Silver medal. The boys done good. To have three out of four world champions proves that the British team are the dominant force in world microlighting.

Congratulations to all of our pilots, and especially to all of our medal winners. BONSAI!

Saturday - scores on the doors ??

2007-08-25T14:06:00.000+02:00

**NOTE** The scores are not yet final!

After yesterdays final task there were some tense hours waiting for the final scores. In all the medal positions it was so tight and a missed photo or marker could be the difference between 1st and fourth. The results were announced at 7pm (very prompt ) and it looks like there are 3 golds - Richard, Paul and Paul, Rob and Chris, Silver - Dave and Bronze -Robbie and Reece. We have Silver in the team and Gold in the unofficial Weightshift team prize. In all a pretty impressive haul ! - As always the ink is still drying and they are still provisional and could change(subject to the last minute protest ! ) so we are now waiting - a few of us have flown this morning and had some enjoyable flights. -Owain

see czech website for scores

The flying is finished

2007-08-25T09:36:00.000+02:00

We ended up flying a nav task on Friday afternoon in very nice conditions, fairly light wind and light broken cloud, ending with another precision landing. We knew it would be the last task, nerves were high, we had a lot to lose. Pilots came back mostly reporting an OK flight, not necessarily barnstormingly fantastic, but good solid points. Relief.

That's it! Flying over, unless you count Paul and David flying little model planes in and out the tent. There hasn't been too much flying this year, but the tasks themselves have been good (or really hard, take your pick). So, Friday night was de-stress night, Sue cooked up another fantastic meal, and the team was able to relax. This is Sue standing next to Anita with Simon sitting by his tent.

I hate this part of the championships - the scores are out, but they are provisional at this stage. If they don't change then we will have two world champions and lots of other truly excellent results. But it is a big 'if' - now is the time for complaints and protests as competitors can see a medal just out of reach so they try to reclaim whatever points they can. Scores can change, we'll just have to wait for any Jury decisions to be made public before we can actually relax properly. More nervous times.

And... the British team always tries to help. Here's a picture of Richard's family, from left to right are Jessica, wife Jeanette and Holly. I hope this makes a certain Grandmother proud.

Fog stops play

2007-08-24T09:34:00.000+02:00

An early start today, first take-off at 0800. We had to line up in start order, then be given the task information (map, photos etc) with 30 minutes to prepare.

The first ten planes got away, the next ten were already in the 30 minute planning quarantine period, when word was spread that the task was cancelled. The first Czech competitors had found fog on the track so they broke the seal on their mobile phones and called the competition director. It's a beautiful day here, sunny with light winds, the fog will only have lasted an hour or so more.

This is Mathieu Bernard (yes, he's French) with a complicated map board complete with pins, string and stickers to help with the in-flight nav planning. We've had a team leader meeting, the general consensus is to fly a different nav task later today so the organisers are getting a reserve task ready, hopefully we'll be off by 3pm.

Penultimate night

2007-08-23T21:40:00.001+02:00

After todays horrendously complicated nav task was postponed due to the weather, the wind died down enough to allow us to fly an engine-off spot landing. With the scores so close, the pressure levels were high, with everyone fully aware that this could be the make or break of a World Championship title.
In quite difficult crosswind conditions, the Pauls (Dewhurst and Welsh) screamed into the deck to collect a healthy 200pts, ensuring they enter the final day with a healthy lead.
Richard Rawes nailed the 250, while unfortunately David Hadley dropped ever-so-slightly short and Owain judged the range right but wasn't quite able to correct the crosswind drift angle enough and drifted slightly out of the deck.
I disappeared below the horizon on my spot landing, but the 'fishing float' Shadow lived up to its name and sailed neatly into the 250 box. I was extremely chuffed to receive a coveted Team Bonzai sticker for amusing the crowd; any gold medal pales in comparison!
The spots mixed up the two-seat flexwing class nicely, with the leader (Andre Thuroczy) dropping short to allow Rob Grimwood & Chris Saysell to regain the lead, with Rob & Rees Keene just 62 points behind in 3rd place. Richard Rawes has over 200pts lead in his class, and I go into the last day just 17 points behind Jan Lukes in the solo fixed-wing class.
As such, it's all to play for tomorrow, with the same complicated task due to be flown early tomorrow morning. Judging from the previous nav task, it could go either way very easily, and with all 4 classes so closely contested the pressure is on to fly well tomorrow.
Wish us luck!
Dave Broom.

Lazy day

2007-08-23T15:36:00.001+02:00

Well, what was supposed to be another tricky flying day took a different turn when the organisers called the task off, something to do with the howling wind and thermals, making a roller coaster of a sky. Time to catch up on some meditation.

See the flag on the right of the Aeroprakts. Nice plane, really noisy though - you can pick it out from the other planes when it's starting up.

Several of us took the opportunity to get away from the airfield and there's a good swimming pool nearby. Others sat in the shade (it's hot out of the wind) and chatted. Here's Rob Grimwood's fiancée Louise with Malcolm on her left. Malcolm forms half of a team, last year they were known as the Chuckle Brothers or International Rescue, they fetch, carry, cook, clean, and generally make life a little easier for us all. Another addition to camp is Naomi, she was official cook and helper last year, this year she's official girlfriend to Chris. I'll see if she succeeds in avoiding the camera too.

And below is Malcolm. The wind has died a little, the organisers have announced a spot landing task, first take off in 15 minutes so we'd better get going.

Thursday. Uh-oh.

2007-08-23T09:47:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was odd. Flying was cancelled because of the rain forecast, so most of the camp went in two buses to Prague to the Aviation museum... 6 hours in a non air-conditioned bus for 2 hours in the museum, though it was apparently pretty good.

The rain came before lunchtime, a bit of wetness for about 90 minutes then the skies cleared and it was a beautiful sunny day, the evening conditions were calm and many took advantage of the perfect conditions to do a bit of engine-off spot landing practice. Except for those who went to Prague and were still on the way back, of course. One of the buses was quite new, the rumour was that it didn't have the necessary 'tax' sticker on its new windscreen to be able to use the motorways so it did a tour of Czech instead. The first bus load returned in time for a bit of evening flying and they'd stopped at McDonalds. The second bus finally got back just in time for the start of a hangar party.

Parties mid-week are a bit odd. There's the marshals and others who are quite happy to sink a glass of Pils, a few team leaders and maybe the odd (slightly less committed) pilot too. A couple of Brits were seen enjoying themselves, but nothing too outrageous. That was left to the South Africans and the French who engaged in beer mat wars - a fantastic sight, seeing 20 people launch a thousand beer mats at the other team accompanying it all with a huge tribal cheer. Then South African Rob McFie played his ace card - a high powered water gun, capable of clearing a hangar in seconds. Hmm...

It was all good fun, in measured quantities. These competitions are very social occasions, many of the competitors are long time friends who meet once a year. The flying is intense, today's task looks set to be another nasty one. It's a navigation exercise, but will require pilots to draw circles on their maps while flying and trying to find photos/markers. It's not easy for 2 seat crews, so very challenging for solo flyers. The wind is shaking the trees too, I doubt there'll be much of a party atmosphere in the tent tonight.

Hard or what?

2007-08-22T08:30:00.000+02:00

Team Godfather Paul Dewhurst has been competing since 1990. In the last 17 years he has not won a medal in only three competitions, and on two of those occasions he was 4th. His first reaction after the task yesterday was to say "that was the most difficult task I have ever flown". He finally stopped fidgeting long enough for a picture too.

By the time the solo trikes got going, it was windy. I mean, it was blowing a good 20kt on the ground and tempers were short, especially on the part of Rawesy when he found that a French trike was parked in his allocated spot. Here's Owain shortly before receiving the photos.

The task only took about 90 mins to fly, but we had to sit around in quarantine waiting for everyone else to land, so runners were sent to get bottled beer. Good time for a bit of lazy chat and descriptions of staring doom in the face while trying to hang on the the bar for dear life. It was particularly gnawing for some, you just had to grin and bear it, show those pearly whites and bite down. I'm sure I could hear the grinding of teeth at one point... and I was right. Poor Simon was asking for Superglue later to fix his teeth - he'd actually broken them while getting kicked around the sky!

If it's tales of death-defying stunts and courageous resilience then Hadders is your man. I can't remember the details, but I think he said he was flying backwards, swerving through the trees as he was sucked in by an earthquake, his leg had been severed, his fingers numb through frostbite, yet despite temporary blindness he managed to avoid a grizzly bear while single-handedly fighting off the Spanish Armada. He's not the tallest bloke in the team (he wouldn't be the tallest bloke in the Dwarf Olympics either) but he's built of pure steel - witness the "Mr Muscle" arms, the trademark of a true Chaser pilot.

The scores are out, mixed results for some, an absolute stormer for Frank and Brad, and Paul "You disa-respecta ma familia?" and the boffin are successfully not losing points. Here's a very serious team meeting to discuss the intricacies of the rules and detailed plan of attack for the next day.

There's no flying today (Wednesday). The rainfall radar is not very spesh, and the organisers have laid on buses to Prague, about 2 hours away. Day off, then.

to be FRANK, a mixed day !

2007-08-22T07:00:00.000+02:00

Wednesday morning - team marquee- early

Everybody is recovering from yesterdays task, a very mixed day when the weather conditions made for some very interesting flying and some significant changes on the scores. The task was a type of sequential nav on two circles. The intention being that you would fly around the outer circle until seeing a photo; you would then turn onto the inner circle and fly that and so on.Imagine trying to turn a target into cog. Miss a marker and you would carry on oblivious until picking back up on the correct circle-some pilots returned with more teeth than others.The organisers upped the workload considerable by also adding a ground speed score to the task -oh and a few other markers on/off track as well .... and 20kt winds!

The planning part of the task enabled several members of the team to demonstrate their Blue Peter Skills with various shapes and templates being manufactured from Acetate and card. The take off window was large with competitors being separated by 3 minute gaps. In the single seat weightshift Richard had another good day and coming third in the task -interestingly the task was won by Robert Gassman who decided to fly without groundspeed and concentrate on the nav. David Hadley and Myself had frustrating days, both of us missing the first ground marker and spending alot of time flying on the inner circle when we should have been on the outer one. The start of the task was a little lively in and amongst the valleys and I managed to fly backwards into the start gate whilst Hadley spent rather a long time looking at a wood! In Dave Brooms class Dave lost a little more points to leader Jan Lukas (czech). In the very close two seat weightshift class Grimwood, Keene and Baker were all upstaged by a stunning performance from Frank and Brad. Frank wisely concentrated on Nav and achieved 3rd in class Whilst the others languished in the lower order. This has dropped Rob and Chris down to third and Robbie into Fourth. Simon is currently in ninth. In the the 2 seat fixed wing the Pauls won the task with typically reliable performance. They now lead the class by a comfortable 417 points.

With three days it is all to play for - in all classes one mistake can be fatal for medal aspirations. The organisers have promised an even more complicated task and with another economy task to come there is alot to gain and even more to loose! . Its just started to Rain ! - and Richard Rawes has just asked "has anybody got a spare front strut"!

link to the excellent official scores website

Tuesday morning

2007-08-21T07:49:00.000+02:00

0750 here, the weather is not very special, low cloud and it's been raining a fair bit. There's a team leader's briefing in 10 mins, we'll find out what's in store for the rest of the day.

Update - today's task is navigation, a complicated thing involving two circles, markers, photos, turnpoints and having to fly between the circles. Take off time is scheduled for 12 noon, but the weather is looking very un-clever with storms forecast. If we don't do the nav today, we're preparing for two precision landings tonight.

Here's hoping for some better weather soon. Apparently it's all the Germans' fault, it's raining there.

round and round - fuel duration -Mon night

2007-08-20T21:23:00.000+02:00

Monday night - Marquee

Scores are now published for the fuel duration task and things are looking rosy for the British Team. Most pilots consolidated their promising start and managed some impressive duration times. This consolidated their position and now means that this quite tricky task is out of the way. Dave Broom was pleased with the relatively small loss(500pts) to his competitors (flying very slippery machines! ) Grimwood, Baker and Keene all returned strong scores and this should keep them firmly attached to the top of the leaderboard. Richard Rawes and David Hadley both scored well in their chasers. In the WL1 class local favourite Lukas Hynek landed short and dropped him down to 7th - as Paul Dewhurst said "points are lost - not won!! "

Its chucking it down now and we are hoping for good weather tomorrow. Its nice to see the high percentage of British flags on the results page, ! official results

Electric trims

2007-08-20T15:27:00.002+02:00

You can't have 'another' electric trim without having the first one. There are a couple of these French things, called DTA Combos (AKA 'surf and turf') and they seem to be missing a front strut. Erm... not for me, thanks.

This is Jury President Jan van der Hayden having a peek.

2007-08-20T14:50:00.000+02:00

Monday and a walk down the line while the fuel was being issued for today's Duration (thermals) task showed up another electric trim. This one looks neat.

Rob and Chris finally succumbed to the camera. Somehow Foggy's still not posed for his mugshot, I think it's the pressure of being team leader that's added 15 years to his boyish good looks and he doesn't want a record of the new wrinkles on his brow. Rob's fiancée Louise has arrived, so Chris is worried Rob's concentration might stray. Rumour is there's nothing to worry about, certain relaxation methods are subject to a competition embargo, or so they say, I could not possibly comment.

Rob Grimwood is CFI at Plaistows and current World Champion.

Chris Saysell is Rob's P2, he is also current World Champion.

They posed for a hero shot. It was a bad time for Rob Keene to decide to nick their funnel, we've got the evidence, Rob, don't deny it!

Single seaters had 7kg (about 10 litres) of fuel, 2 seaters had 10kg. The conditions are a bit funny, almost everyone had taken off within 15 minutes of the 13:45 start time, there was a fair bit of wind, some fluffy clouds, a bit of menacing black stuff downwind and then a thin layer of high cloud creeping across (which would kill off any thermals). This much fuel is enough for at least 2 hours in a Chaser, though with a bit of luck in the rising air, we might be waiting several hours more before the last ones get to the beer tent. The flying window closes at 19:30.

The event director is over the worst of his fever, so his military style of team leader briefings will resume tonight, no doubt. He struts across the front of the room with a small flag in his hand, it reminds me of the SS character in 'Allo 'Allo. He will only say it once.

Fuelling was reasonably efficient, it still took about 3 hours though. It's now a question of waiting for our brave flying heroes to return. Oh, and Hadders, who was tossing up whether or not to do a quick circuit and then get some kip. He doesn't like this task.

Lukas Hynek (Czech team) with a very nice single seater, an even nicer HKS installation.

The scores on the doors Richard Rawes !

2007-08-20T09:42:00.000+02:00

Monday morning

After yesterdays fairly intense task this morning has been a little more relaxed. The organisors have settled for a a very simple task - Fuel duration - they have given us a lot of fuel which should mean a few numb bums. We are currently waiting for the weather and the go ahead from the organisers - it looks 50/50 at the moment - most of us are hoping it will go ahead- otherwise its a long day !

Yesterdays scores are now out and the Team is making good progress - Richard Rawes is ahead in WL1, in Wl2 the usual suspects are in the mix and extremely closely matched - the Grimwood / Saysell combo has only dropped 17 points out of a possible 3000. This class is the most closely contested and any small mistake could mean dropping out of the top six. The Pauls are in a strong position and it will be interesting to see how they fair in today's tasks against the Ukraine's slippery machines. Dave "the angel" Broom is leading the way in his class and is looking quietly confident. See the official website for scores and team prize - these are subject to change as the week progresses, this does change with the wind direction and nothing is certain until the final scores. Owain

Tim Keene dons the washing up gloves !

Day 2

2007-08-19T20:53:00.000+02:00

It's day 2 here at WMC2007, and already the stress has got to the comp director. He's been off all day with a fever (although a number of witnesses had him drinking copious amounts the night before). It might be due to the slightly suspect sausage served in the canteen that has put some of our Chaser pilots off colour today.
Finally had some meaty tasks to get our teeth into today, with 2 seperate nav tasks finished by precision landings. With the comp director absent, no-one could find the correct photos for task 1, so that was slightly easier than intended, allowing us to wake up slightly before the utterly manic spot touch-and-go and the second nav task. This was very busy, especially for the solo pilots. In one case Owain Johns spotted a marker but didn't have time to mark it in the turbulent conditions.
Most of us had a reasonable day, except David Hadley (who traditionally makes a mistake on the 1st day and then performs brilliantly for the rest of the week), who got slightly lost. However, we're still waiting for the scores to come out, so we don't know for sure.
There are some good photos and videos (especially of some slightly dodgy landings) on the official website at www.czechinfo.aero, well worth a look.
Anyway, off to the bar now; soaring task tomorrow, so minimum planning required. Just fuel up, take off, fly until you run out of fuel, and land. How hard can it be?!?
Dave Broom.

Shorts and Bonsai!

2007-08-19T18:36:00.000+02:00

Dr Paul only owns two pairs of shorts, the loud red ones and the loud blue ones. This makes washing a desirable activity. Desirable by the rest of us.

"Team Bonsai" - this was something to do with Owain, Hadders and Rob Keene, and a rather large branch of a tree. Owain's blog describes it well, and those honoured to join this esteemed club get to wear their team shirt with pride.

Marshals

2007-08-19T18:23:00.000+02:00

All the officials have different colours - jury/stewards are in yellow, marshals are in orange. Not sure why I took this pic of nice marshal Dennis and some random woman. In fact I hadn't noticed the woman until just now. Strange, that.

Tasks 2, 3, 4, 5

2007-08-19T18:03:00.001+02:00

Sunday. Deck take-off, then a navigation task, having to exactly follow lines on the chart, looking for photos and markers, and all at a pre-declared ground speed. Then a precision landing at an outfield, except it was a touch and go, since it was also the start of the next nav task, following a series of curves and looking for photos/markers. The task ended with a precision landing - this is landing in a box 100m by 25m, divided into sections which score different points. The closer you land to the start of the box, the more points you get. Quite a few good scores in the final landing, we got a few 250 points in the bag.

One minor hitch was that Competition Director Jan Hyncica is in bed with a fever, so things didn't go quite as smoothly since deputy Jan Bem had to step in. They couldn't decide which photos were to be used for the first nav task, so there were none! We were given a sheet saying 'no photos for task 2'. Made life a little bit easier. Jan (Hyncica) must be allergic to dancing, since he was leading the way at the opening ceremony party last night.

After landing, we had to go into a quarantine area and were given 15 mins to mark up where we thought we'd seen photos or markers. There's loads of marshals, and after a few warm up glitches things seem to be better run on the ground. Here's Hadders about to mark the spot with an X.

Owain, scrutinising his map carefully.

It was hard work today. It's got blowy so the groundspeed bit was difficult. There's now free flying while we weigh fuel for an efficiency task tomorrow, briefing later this evening.

Team photo

2007-08-19T18:01:00.001+02:00

Foggy (AKA Paul Dewhurst) didn't manage to avoid the camera this time (he's on the right of the GB sign.

Task 1 started at 16:30 while a load of the public were still around (big crowd for the airshow). A precision timed landing - take off out of a 100m long deck, then exactly 4 mins later land in another deck, scoring points for time accuracy and also how close you landed to the start of the deck. Once established on final, you weren't allowed to deviate more than 45 degrees.

Task 1.5 was the hangar party to mark the start of the comp, complete with a band doing Abba covers, and (as soon as the fantastic and cheap beer took effect) lots of dancing too. Prices are cheap here, in the team tent we're charging ourselves 10 czech crowns per beer, which is about 27 pence. And Czech beer is delicious too.

The Team 2007

2007-08-19T17:08:00.000+02:00

This is who we are. Somehow team leader Paul Dewhurst and also Rob Grimwood and Chris Saysell managed to avoid the camera. So far, anyway. Perhaps it's a champion's prerogative? Paul is current World and European champion, Rob and Chris are current World Champions, they missed out on the European title by 4 points last year.

Anita Holmes is co-pilot to Simon

Simono Baker in a P&M GT450

Richard Rawes, current European Champion, Chaser 508

Rocket Scientist Dr Paul Welsh, sitting next to Paul Dewhurst

Owain Johns, in a Chaser 508 generously loaned by Nigel Beale at Skydrive.

Family Keene, they turned up in wellies, I think they were expecting rain (their Gloucestershire farm resembled the North Sea in the recent floods). From left to right, Tim, Rees (co-pilot), Sue (Chief Cook) and Rob. Rob and Rees are flying in a sponsored P&M GT450.

David Hadley (Hadders) in a Chaser 508. Plane is still in one piece... Behind him is Richard, recently de-mobbed from the RAF, I think it's had an effect on him.

Frank Hodgson, Quantum 912

Chris & Claire Wills, taildragger Escapade 912

David Broom, 503 Shadow

Brad Wagenhauser, copilot to Frank in the Quantum

Time to find pictures of the others.

Saturday - Opening Ceremony

2007-08-19T16:32:00.000+02:00

Part 2 of the general briefing was carried over from Friday night (it was nearing 11pm and Competition Director Jan Hyncica was threatening to go on for another hour) so we had more talking until around 10am. While Team Leader Paul and Rob Keene were listening to yet more procedure, we had to line planes up in start order, ready for task one later in the day. Flying on day one - not the norm...

Then at 12pm, two military training jets woke us up, doing lots of low passes and signalling the start of a 3 hour air show, with all sorts including wooden Czech planes, ultra-quiet Vanessa Air VL3s (just amazed at how quiet they were) and ending with WW1 replicas engaged in dog fighting. Here's the VL3s.

Then the opening ceremony itself. We formed a square and a load of official stuff was said in Czech, followed by Max Bishop, Secretary General of the FAI, who declared the show was open.

Owain's blog

2007-08-19T16:29:00.001+02:00

Read Owain's blog while waiting for us to sort out a few technical issues.

We're here

2007-08-17T19:00:00.000+02:00

We got here, no mishaps on the way, though a few salty stories of daring flying. Lots of catching up to do.

The pilots' room is not a room at all. It's a bus, complete with photocopier and admin staff who sit on the regular bus seats! Here's the canteen/bar area, of course no beer drinking goes on at all.

Not even by Chris and Claire Wills, husband and wife team in an Escapade 912.

More later.

Some photos

2007-08-13T09:34:00.000+02:00

The organisers have posted some photos on the official website.

On the way

2007-08-10T22:05:00.000+02:00

Most of the team have now left the UK. Several have started the 1000 mile trip today, with many flying their competition planes out to Usti Nad Orlici. The team van has also left, driven by Owain Johns, who will be competing in the solo flexwing (WL1) class in a 508 Chaser.

The weather forecast for central Europe is not brilliant, but the team should arrive by Monday or Tuesday, so that they can get a few days practice in before the competition flying starts on Sunday.

The Czech have created a website for the championships - click here to take a look. Also, click on any image in this blog to see a bigger version.

Welcome!

2007-08-07T23:22:00.000+02:00

A blog of the British Microlight team at the World Microlight Championships 2007 - we'll start on Friday August 17th, and the competition itself kicks off on Saturday August 18th.

See you then!