Occasionally, however, very occasionally in the world of aerobatics, the notoriously fickle British weather provides some pleasant surprises. Thankfully for all concerned this weekend was one such occasion. For, as Chief Judge Ian Scott pointed out, Saturday morning’s visibility was only limited by the curvature of the earth. We even had sunshine!

For the four Unlimited, nine Advanced and six Intermediate pilots competing this weekend Elvington is a curious location. Other than a seemingly infinite runway, a relic of the Cold War (and reserve landing site for the Space Shuttle) there’s precious little there by way of infrastructure. Not that this matters; thanks to Carl Bullock, the extremely accommodating airfield manager, we had everything we needed to brief as scheduled at 10.00Am in an on-site porta-cabin.

With the dull but necessary stuff out of the way Graeme Fudge was able to set the ball rolling for the Intermediate Free Programme at 11.00, with the entire programme being completed under an hour later. Keen to make the most of our good fortune with the weather, our judging team crossed their legs and remained out in the field to judge the first Advanced Unknown back to back.

In the intermediate camp Mike Collett had clearly thrown down the gauntlet to Chris Sills with an excellent 80.9% flight. However, Chris’s 78.3% still left him very much in contention if the higher K Free Unknown went his way. The Advanced first unknown was more spread out after the first flight, with Phil Burgess having established a commanding lead over Alan Cassidy, with Mark Stewart just behind in third place.

After a short lunch break it was time for the four unlimited pilots to show the rest of us how to make a complicated sequence look easy to fly. Tom Cassells kicked off with a tightly flown programme only to pipped at the post by his protégé and second to fly, Michael Pickin. An outstanding result for Michael in his first competition at unlimited and one which bodes well for the future of our Unlimited team. It’s worth pointing out that the third and fourth places of Simon Johnson and Ed Cyster on 70.7% and 69.4% respectively were scores that might have won an unlimited unknown here not that long ago.

Pressing on into the afternoon, Ron Allan took the Golden Snitch trophy for the Advanced Masters with an interesting array of gyroscopic free figures woven into the compulsory programme. Phil Burgess and Alan Cassidy also entertained both the judges and pilots in second and third place, with Alan demonstrating the impact that smoke can have to add to the sense of “flow” of a sequence.

Sunday looked less promising with a PROB 40 in the Leeds Bradford TAF of morning mist. The fact that there is therefore a PROB 60 of no mist generally means nothing in the world of aerobatic contests. But again we were surprised ... Tom Cassells was even able to fly-in in time for a 9.00 brief, declaring the cloud base to be “above three grand”, despite some scepticism from others that he’d been much above 200 feet AGL in transit.

We commenced with the David Perrin trophy for the four minute freestyle, amazingly not contested since 2009. Again Tom opened the batting, this time with an interestingly choreographed display of freestyle figures after a diving entry with 10 consecutive positive flick rolls. Michael Pickin and Simon Johnson did their best to follow suit but it was Tom’s flight that found favour with the judges.

The Advanced crew then flew their second unknown, which seemed to cause more problems for some pilots than the first, especially the last two figures. Alan Cassidy secured his place at the top of the pile but Emily Collett’s second place in this programme wasn’t enough to close the gap on Mark Stewart, who took silver overall, and Randall Hockey in Bronze.

This left just the Intermediate Free Unknown to complete. The stakes were high, not only because of the bridgeable gap between Mike Collett and Chris Sills, but because Emily Collett, his wife, had elected to fly the programme H/C as practice for the intermediate world championships in November. To make matters worse, Emily and Mike had elected to fly exactly the same sequence (from a choice of 5), so there could only be one winner … and no excuses.

As it was, despite an impressive score of 80.3% from Mike, the judges were in doubt as to who would have won the sequence had Emily’s flight been anything other than “practice”. Mike’s flight did, however, confirm his position as the winner of the Intermediate Nathanial Alony trophy, so life isn’t too bad.

And so it came to pass that at 13.40 on a sunny Sunday afternoon a pretty full flying programme had actually been completed without incident, major box incursions, mechanical gremlins, or even noise complaints. Perhaps then, when the weather’s on your side, it really isn’t that hard after all.

Our thanks go out, as always, to the large and committed body of volunteers that make these events possible. In particular, to Ian Scott’s team of judges and assistants and the ever-smiling Jen B on the computer, and also to Carl Bullock and his crew at Elvington for welcoming us with such good humour.