Articles Precision (Page 8)

2005 Wings ‘n Tracks National Precision Flying Championships

Wings ‘n Tracks National Precision Flying Championships

Brits, South Africa – 28 to 29 April 2005.

By Adrian Pilling

Wednesday, 27 April

Competitors at the 2005 National Precision Flying Championships — Competitors and Officials.

The public holiday allowed some of the crews to arrive in time for the National Championships. Crews flew in from as far away as Durban and Port Elizabeth.

The enthusiastic town of Brits was the host to this prestigious event, again. This town is truly amazing as the marshals and all the officials are so dedicated to this sport that quite literally if they did not do what they did the sport would battle to survive. Thanks guys and gals.

The evening briefing was fun with most of the crews settling down for the night. However one of the crews, Nigel Hopkins, was still flying the Boeing back from Bombay and we were not sure he could make it.

Thursday, 28 April

The day dawned, cold and a little hazy. The first off for the day was Adrian Pilling, into flight planning at 8am. The rest of the crews followed with Nigel Hopkins racing across form Jhb International to make the competition and Frank Eckard arriving in time to join too.

Ron and Mauritz in the classroom - click to enlarge — Ron and Mauritz in the classroom.

The route was tough but fair. One mishap however got the competitors talking amongst themselves is that Mary de Klerk forgot to put her logger in the plane and in doing so scored maximum penalties for the day (OOOOOPS). The route featured 12 photos, 4 ground markers and 9 legs. A deceptive route to say the least.

The Competition was scored swiftly and accurately and before the evening meal was served by the Brits supporters, the results were out. 1st Place Nigel Hopkins, 2nd Place Barry de Groot, 3rd Place Adrian Pilling, 4th Place Jan Hanekom, 5th Frank Eckard, 6th Place Ron Stirk, 7th Place Hans Schwebel, 8th Place Ernie Alexander, 9th Place Mauritz Due Plessis, 10th Place Walter Walle, 11th Place Mary de Klerk (due to the logger story, otherwise Mary would have been 5th).

A great evening was had by all and after much merrymaking the crews retired for the night and prepared for the coming battle.

Friday, 29 April

Landing Champion - Adrian Pilling Winners - click to enlarge — Landing Champion – Adrian Pilling receiving his trophy from sponsor Barbara Friebose.

The day started with a bright and sunny morning and the usual Brits enthusiasm had everybody panting with anticipation for the coming competition. The start order was the same as yesterday with Adrian taking off first.

The route was again a deceptively simple route around the province, featuring much difficult terrain and difficult photographs, a typical tough Brits competition.

The day proved challenging with many mishaps occurring. Adrian had a problem with his logger which failed to record the flight and as a result scored maximum (OOPS), Nigel had a mishap in flight planning scoring maximum (OOPS).

2005 South African Precision Flying Champion - Nigel Hopkins — 2005 S A Precision Flying Champion – Nigel Hopkins.

At the end of the navigation section the scores were neck and neck with Barry de Groot and Nigel Hopkins equal on 539 penalties each and everything to fly for with the landing competition in front of them.

The landings produced their own set of dramas with Ron Stirk clearly in the lead, but scoring a skip and putting him down the field (OOPS). Then with Barry slightly in the lead over Nigel and with one landing to go, Barry executed a perfect landing and was clearly set to pip Nigel at the post when it was discovered that he had taken off with ten degrees of flaps and had forgotten to remove them for the final landing and in so doing scoring maximum for this landing (OOPS), thus handing the championship to Nigel. Wow what a nail biting finish for the competitors.

Adrian won the landing competition thus making up somewhat for the logger problem earlier in the day.

That evening the competitors waited in eager anticipation for the results. A huge braai was enjoyed by all and then down to business. The final results were:-

2005 South African Precision Flying Squad — National Precision Flying Squad L to R – Jan Hanekom, Ernie Alexander, Ron Stirk, Adrian Pilling, Nigel Hopkins, Mary de Klerk, Barry de Groot, Hans Schwebel and Chris Booysen (Manager).

1 Nigel Hopkins 583
2 Jan Hanekom 635
3 Hans Schwebel 670
4 Ron Stirk 760
5 Barry de Groot 772
6 Frank Eckard 938
7 Ernie Alexander 1509
8 Walter Walle 1909
9 Mauritz Du Plessis 2406
10 Adrian Pilling ** 3387
11 Mary de Klerk ** 3452

What’s more the provisional squad to the World Championships in France next year was announced. The squad comprises:- Hopkins, Pilling, Hanekom, de Klerk, Schwebel, Stirk, de Groot, Alexander. Well done to you all.

Thank you to the following for a great event. The Competition Director and Chief Judge was Chris Booysen ably assisted by his wife Denise. The Jury comprised Dicky Swanepoel, Thys Herman and Tony Peeters. The Chief Marshall was Jacques Jacobs. The Safety Officer was Ruben Knotze. The Route Planner was Deon Van Den Berg. The Fuel Officer was Paul Hermann. Of course a big thanks to the Brits Flying Club and all the supporters for their very hard work. A special thank you to Wings n’ Tracks for their sponsorship and of course to the marshals for all their hard work.

Thank you all.

Wings ‘n Tracks National Precision Flying Championships – Brits 2005 – Detailed Results

		Day One						Day Two						Land	Grand
Pos	Name	The	Mkrs	Photo	Flight	Other	Tot	The	Mkrs	Photo	Flight	Other	Tot	Total	Total
1	Nigel Hopkins	0	20	20	57	0	97	350	20	60	12	0	442	44	583
2	Jan Hanekom	1	20	60	201	0	282	0	20	70	207	0	297	56	635
3	Hans Schwebel	0	0	120	336	0	456	0	0	40	123	0	163	51	670
4	Ron Stirk	7	20	60	306	0	393	0	20	120	144	0	284	83	760
5	Barry de Groot	1	20	140	66	0	227	0	20	100	192	0	312	233	772
6	Frank Eckard	94	20	60	177	0	351	0	90	100	195	0	385	202	938
7	Ernie Alexander	12	40	100	725	0	877	0	40	170	291	0	501	131	1509
8	Walter Walle	0	40	80	855	0	975	6	40	160	527	0	733	201	1909
9	Mauritz Du Plessis	4	40	160	770	0	974	0	40	140	943	0	1123	309	2406
10	Adrian Pilling **	0	40	60	156	0	256	0	20	80	3000	0	3100	31	3387
11	Mary de Klerk **	0	40	60	3000	0	3100	0	0	80	210	0	290	62	3452
	Max score	350	80	240	2000	0	2670	350	100	240	3000	0	3690	1200	7560

** Note
– M de Klerk was penalised 2 768 penalties due having to return to the field after take-off to collect a logger
– A Pilling had a logger failure on Day 2 resulting in the allocation of maximim flight penalties

**More Pictures of the National Precision Flying Championships**
Click to enlarge
Jacques and Walter	Marshall at AFP	2005 Precision Jury
Jacques Jacobs – Chief Marshall	Landing Marshals	Maurits landing ZS-MAE.
Landing competition spectators	Jan Hanekom landing ZU-CNG	Barbara – Event Sponsor
Nigel and Barry	Hans Schwebel – 3rd Place	Jan Hanekom – 2nd Place

KZN INTER-PROVINCIAL PRECISION FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Cato Ridge – 2 October 2004

By Chris Booysen

The Cato Ridge Airfield was host to this years KZN Inter-Provincial Precision Flying Championships held on Saturday, 2 October 2004. The airfield, although unlicensed, is an active one especially as the Pietermaritzburg Parachuting Club (the oldest in South Africa) is looking at relocating there to get away from the costs and hassle of the Pietermaritzburg Airfield.

The competition was organised, and the route set by Barry de Groot who did not take part in order to give others the chance of winning the KZN title. As is expected from Barry, the route was difficult with a large number of ground targets and photos. The area around Cato is not easy for navigation and the turning points were difficult. To quote Walter Walle – “The territory was hostile”.

The field was small with only 8 entries, 2 of whom did not take part. This was disappointing after the interest and enthusiasm shown at the first briefing/lecture held by Barry with Mary de Klerk for pilots in the area. After starting with approximately 20 participants in the lectures the numbers dwindled down to only one entrant in the competition, who withdrew when he got flu just before the event.

Jacques Jacobs flew down from Brits with Ron Stirk to act as marshall and Chris Booysen flew up from Port Elizabeth to assist with the scoring.

Most of the competitors arrived on Friday to get in some practice in the area after which they enjoyed a social braai at the Cato clubhouse

Mary de Klerk, Ron Stirk and Jan Hanekom — KZN Precision – Mary de Klerk (3rd), Ron Stirk (1st) and Jan Hanekom (2nd).

Saturday morning started with a short briefing at 8:15 with the first papers being handed out at 8:45. Even though there was a small field there were two groups as Wayne Bond was sharing his Jabiru ZU-CLR with Jan Hanekom. Ernie Alexander was also waiting for his aircraft to be delivered to Virginia. The weather had closed in the previous evening but the day was clear with good visibility. The wind was Easterly at the airfield and this was built into the flight plan. What made it difficult for the competitors was that it was blowing Westerly on part of the route.

Wayne was off first followed at 5 minute intervals by the rest of the field. Most found their way around the route. There were a few missed turning points and secrets. Loggers were downloaded straight after the flights and the results after the flying had Jan Hanekom in the lead with 438 penalty points followed closely by Ron on 488 and Mary on 515. A close result like this made the landing competition even more important.

The landing competition was held after lunch. The landings were held in the following order: normal landing, followed by a glide approach, a flapless glide approach and the a powered approach over a 2 meter barrier. The entrants were divided into two groups with each group doing the first two landings and then the second two.

Unfortunately Mary landed very short on the first landing and Ron landed well taking a bit of pressure off him. After the second landings where Ron had a “Bingo” and Jan landed short meant that Ron was looking like a possible winner. A Bingo by Mary on the last landing was not enough to get her back into the running.

Another braai was provided and Barry made the announcement of the final results which were:

Wayne Bond - KZN Colours — Wayne Bond – new KZN Colours

Overall Results

1st Place Ron Stirk
2nd Place Jan Hanekom
3rd Place Mary de Klerk
4th Place Wayne Bond
5th Place Ernie Alexander
6th Place Walter Walle

Landings

1st Place Ron Stirk
2nd Place Wayne Bond
3rd Place Jan Hanekom

The total possible points for the event were 4 990 which meant that Chris Booysen had the pleasure of awarding Wayne Bond his KZN Provincial Flying Colours

Thanks to Barry, Sam, Chris, Jacques and the Cato Flying Club for making this event a success. It is always a pleasure to visit KZN.

**More Pictures**
Ernie and Mary using the background	KZN Precision Winding down	Mary de Klerk and ZS-LSP
Chris congratulating Wayne KZN Colours

WORLD FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS – 2004 – Part 3 – The Precision Flying Championship

Air BP Logo

WORLD FLYING CHAMPIONSHIPS – 2004

Incorporating the 14^th World Rally Flying Championships,
and the 16^th World Precision Flying Championships

Herning, Denmark – 14 to 24 July 2004.

By Chris Booysen

Part 3 – The Precision Flying Championship

Tuesday, 20 July

Ron and Shosholoza - click to enlarge — Ron Stirk teaching the French to sing Shosholoza.

Exhaustion is starting to set in!! The rally closing function in the evening was the normal fun filled affair with SA teaching the rest how to sing Shosholoza. There is no break between the two competitions and this morning the official practice was held. We are satisfied with our performance for the day but found that some of the wizz wheels have an error which only showed up because they used 29 knots as the wind for the theoretical test.

Our results for the practice show that we have made some silly errors. Hopefully we will eliminate those in the competition. The pilots are finding it fairly simple to stay on track as the maps are accurate and there are plenty of features to use as navigation points but photo recognition is a nightmare. The photos are of trees and fields and there are thousands of places out there which could match the photo. There are no trig beacons! We are also picking up the ground markers.

It is interesting to see that the Polish pilots do not minute mark the track but rather put a time next to each feature that the track crosses. We mark every 30 seconds which means we have to interpolate the times past the features whereas they have the time on the map.

Wednesday, 21 July

The first competition day did not go well for South Africa. Bad luck and silly mistakes cost a large number of points.

Nigel leads the group with 94 points. A perfect track all around the course on time except for about a minute or so – at the secret. This costs unnecessary points. He is followed by Ron on 405 points and Hans on 496 (0 on CP’s but way out on secrets). Jan is on 516 (circling error for 5 sec = 200 pts), Barry on 607, Dale on 1 000 and Walter on 1 101. Ernie had a real bad hair day and returned with two empty loggers.

At the evening briefing we are told that two ground markers are cancelled. A “P” is thrown out because the wind blew the canvas and some pilots thought that it was a “F” and a secret checkpoint marker is cancelled because the marker is stolen during the day (and we thought this only happened in South Africa).

Poland takes the lead after day one with Krzysztof (Christof) Wieczorek ending the day with 6 points. He is followed by Marek Kachaniak (Poland – 32 points), Petr Opat (Czech – 33 points) and Janusz Darocha (Poland – 41 points). Nigel’s 94 points puts him in 14th position followed by Ron in 44th.

Thursday, 21 July

Nigel landing - click to enlarge — Nigel with one of the 3 SA Bingo’s.

The landing test comprises four landings. A normal landing, two forced landings (one flapless) and a landing over a barrier. To win in this competition you need to have at least two “Bingo’s” and the other two landings must be within a metre of the bingo line

After the first landing most of our team put themselves out of the running except for Hans who has 3 points for landing one metre long. Hans bingo’s the second landing and is given a +2 (4 points) for the third landing even though he clearly landed in the bingo box. At this stage two other pilots (M Bartler and N Strube) have 4 points so we are in the running. For the last landing Bartler gets a zero and Strube is marked as a +2 even though is appears to be a zero as well. The landing system used is unreliable but the points will be corrected after watching the videos of the landings.

The pressure is now on Hans who must zero the last landing. Unfortunately he gets a -6 metres which means he will fall well down the rankings

After all the protests (4 Polish and 1 French) the final results are published. First is Natalie Strube on 4 points after a successful protest. The French team had decided to accept the official results but were persuaded by adamant SA support to protest the scoring of one landing. Second was M Bartler (Poland – 4 points) and third Vahama Harri (Finland – 12 points). Nigel is the best from SA in 5th with 16 points followed by Dale and Hans in 27th and 28th. Poland loses 3 of their four protests. I can think of a better way to spend $100 per protest.

Friday, 22 July

I am starting to find out what it means to be a manager. It is the last day of the competition and you are expected to pay for flights still to happen at an office to which you have no access (in case you get some information that will help your team).

Apart from that it is the final day of the competition. There is a weather delay of 3 hours due to fog which only adds to the tension. We need to do well today to regain some lost ground. After the landings we have Nigel in 9th place and then our next position is 48th. At this stage we are lying ninth in the team competition.

The day is badly effected by weather. Ernie has to bale out after flying in IF conditions and some of our team (especially Walter) are badly effected by rain squalls that make it impossible to get to turning points due to low cloud and rain.

The results for the day are better with Nigel scoring 51 points. Jan also has a good day with a total of 200 points. The are once again a number of protests so final scores will be available tomorrow.

The day ended off well with an informal function. A number of fun awards were made recognising the officials and those that had had some slip ups. Walter was recognised as having the landing that delayed the beer drinking the most and Ernie received an award for having the best turned off logger. Brady and Chelsea de Klerk also received awards for the best junior assistants.

Saturday, 23 July

A bus tour to Legoland has been organised and most of the team are on this bus looking worse for wear. It has been a long two weeks but we are on the home straight.

Precision Winners - click to enlarge — From L to R: P Opat (2nd) Krzystof Wieczorek (Winner) and Waclaw Wieczorek (3rd).

The awards ceremony was held in the Herning Congress Centre. First is Krzysztof Wieczorek (Poland) with a total of 71 points followed by Petr Opat (Czech) on 93 points and Waclaw Wieczorek (Poland) with 108 points. Nigel Hopkins is 5th on 161 points. The team gold medal goes to Poland, followed by Czech Republic and France. South Africa end up in 7th position. The landing trophy (individual) as well as the trophy for the best woman pilot goes to Natalie Strube of France. The team landing trophy was awarded to France. Full results are available on theFAI site.

The team have been disappointed at the results as the expectations were high after the win (individual and rally) at Pilanesburg last year. There is no need for this as an analysis of the results since 1990 show that our rally results were only bettered last year and in 1999 while the precision results were only bettered in 1994 (individual). From a team result point of view we have ended in our average position since 1990.

The event has been a great learning experience and we will have to make adjustments to our training over the next two years if we want to improve our placing in the world rankings.

**Pictures taken by various team members**
The Brits Shoe Dance	C172 – OY-AHY	Sunset at Herning Airfield
Herning Airfield	Herning Airfield	Waiting for Take off.
Ron and Jan with Hannes	Nigel and Jan waiting for take-off	Hugo planning route to Mirabo