British Summer Time or BST. Definition - civil time in the United Kingdom is advanced one hour forward of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in effect changing the time zone from UTC±00:00 to UTC+01:00, so that mornings have one hour less daylight, and evenings one hour more [source – Wikipedia].

British summertime. Definition – a few days of sunburn and dehydration, surrounded by long periods of rain, hail, sleet, (snow?) and the aerobatic pilot’s curse, low cloud base [source – the combined wisdom of those pilots and officials attending Sleap this weekend to help compete the Golding Barrett trophy for 2022].

In a nutshell, three intrepid Sports pilots arrived and showed great sportsmanship in patiently waiting for the elusive gap in the clouds. Other Intermediate and Advanced pilots, with less favourable transit conditions, opted for an early bath and saving the avgas fees for a future contest. Officials (a full team under Brian Gleave) were equally patient. In the end impending rain on the Saturday and an unfavourable forecast for Sunday meant that the only safe decision was to despatch everyone home on Saturday afternoon. Contest scratched.

Sunday’s weather at Sleap:  …….2600 RA OVC004///…….

As ever, many thanks to all involved and especially to the wonderfully hospitable Shropshire Aero Club and Bruce, Ben, Nick, Tony, Dave & team in the Pegasus Cafe et al for their great support. I hope the birthday party went well, gentlemen!

Really looking forward to seeing Alex Cartwright’s Pitts Super Stinker fly in October. What a beauty.

To finish, a few kind words sent by Bryher Grimes and Charlie Golding Barrett, Arthur ‘GB’ Golding Barrett’s daughter and son and great supporters of this annual contest. “This is just the sort of competition GB would have loved. We have very happy memories from our childhood of watching him compete and latterly judge, at similar events all over the country. Thank you to everyone who continues to give their time and energy to organise this competition every year.” Hear, hear.

Steve Todd - Contest Director