LOOP News

L-R Richard Chapman, Mike Ellis and Stephen Hulks.

26 JUN 07: LOOP BEGINNERS DAY 1: BODMIN

A LOUSY weather forecast for the first LOOP Beginners Day of the season on 19 May at Bodmin didn't bode well, and on the Friday afternoon we hear aircraft are stuck at Compton Abbas and Bournemouth in poor weather.

But no, this is Cornish weather. By early evening it cleared to a lovely evening and Simon Janvrin flew in the T76.

By Saturday morning, we can see the sun. There are five pilots waiting to fly and a DR400 is on its way from Bournemouth to join us with a couple more.

We have two aircraft with safety pilots, Simon in the T67 and Howard Fawkes in a Robin 2160. Each pilot will do a sortie away from the circuit and, on return, they will fly the Beginners sequence.
Mid-morning Annabelle Burroughes arrived in her beautiful Jüngman and was also able to fly an initial sequence.

A pause to hold a further briefing for a more formal assessment flight to be flown in the afternoon. Each pilot flies a second flight in the box, which the team judges.

In the end Mike Ellis scored highest but only by 1% from Stephen Hulks followed a further 3% behind by Richard Chapman. What mattered most though was that all the pilots learned a lot and enjoyed themselves, we had plenty of laughs on the ground watching and the weather completely failed to spoil things.

The heroes of the day were Simon Janvrin and Howard Fawkes who were more or less padlocked into their aircraft except for a short break for lunch - the event would have been impossible without them.

RESULTS
Beginners

1 Mike Ellis, Slingsby 70.91%
2 Stephen Hulks, Robin 2160 69.83%
3 Richard Champion, Slingsby-T67M 66.44%
4 John Smith, Robin 2160 65.24%
5 Ollie Wareham, Robin 2160 63.44%
6 Annabelle Burroughes, Jungmann 50.22%
7 Eric Whitehead, Slingsby 48.03%
8 Martina Van Der Leij, Slingsby 35.56%

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LOOP News

26 JUN 07: LOOP BEGINNERS DAY 1: BODMIN