Dominated by Bertha

In the days leading up to the Leicester based Gunpowder Trophy my life became dominated by Bertha, not a big old gal who couldn't be ignored, though that was certainly true, but the tropical storm threatening to sweep across the UK from the Atlantic. The adjective of 'big' is often associated with 'Bertha' and she was certainly living up to her name in various parts of the country in the days prior to the competition. Thankfully there did appear to be a window of opportunity forecast for Saturday and this proved to be the case with a field of 13 pilots assembled for the briefing on a gloriously sunny morning.

First to fly were the Standard category entrants followed by Beginners and finishing with Intermediate. The standard of flying in all categories was very high with both Standard and Intermediate winners scoring over 80%.

The Beginners duo had a closely fought battle for first place with the win going to Olivia Arsene over the well flown Slingsby of local, Dave Evans. After travelling from Romania and suffering three changes of aircraft before flying KITI thanks to the generosity of Alex and Aidan this seemed just reward for Olivia.

The KITI boys came first and second in Standard with Alex Cartwright just pipping Aidan Smith to the Gunpowder Trophy continuing a very good run of results for both of them this year. Leicester based Iain Thompson and John Vize occupied the runner up positions, both with scores that would have won events in past years. This was John's final competition after many years although I believe he intends to return as a judge and will hopefully then provide an answer to his briefing question of 'Why do men have nipples?'.

In the Intermediate class Stephen Hipwell ROMPed home over Chris Sills with an excellent score with third place going to Mike Collett (who wins the prize for most effectively hiding from the CD to hand-fly his sequence).

With a push to complete all sequences before the arrival of Bertha's remnants and the donor of the Gunpowder Trophy, Howard Fawkes, on hand to present it this year, the prize giving was completed by 3.30 followed by swift departures both in the air and to the bar.

My thanks to the Judges and their assistants who probably did not get enough time for lunch.