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Tuesday 26 June 2012

Microlight Round Britain Rally 2012

In reading this little report remember I'm not a Biggles type, I'm just the monkey with the camera and the map (usually upside down).

Well I'm going to give the game away from the start, we won !!!

Well won Silver !!! The results being as follows - the numerics being points after deduction of a handicap based on the microlight used to compete.

Gold
1st Marcus Furniss and Tim Walker 1609.59
2nd John Bradbury and Ian Shaw 1472.60
3rd Guy Gratton and Annabel Cook    792.08
Silver
1st Jon Hilton and David Gaskell 2343.75
2nd Alan Shufflebottom and Steve Dancaster     1601.12
3rd Les Wright and Graham Hall 1187.05
4th Fred Beeson and Adrian Slater 1107.14
5th Bill Scott and Roger Fouracre 1050
6th Grant Finney and Les Call 927.42
7th Phil Chapman and Laura Strain 590.91
Novice Gold
No novice gold
Novice Silver
1st Ian Lee 544.55
2nd Alan Cummings 409.09

Whats it all about  ? It's a race, well a rally, well a competition to fly round the country visiting/flying over as many predetermined turnpoints as possible -  these could be Whitby Pier, The Needles, a long list of disused airfields, lighthouses - or anything the judges can think up for pilots to safely navigate to. The directions are given to you in latitude and longitude.

What does the Silver award mean, well it means we had the aid of GPS or similar SatNav of the sky, Gold class means no such fancy toys - map !!!!

You fly between 8am and 7pm over 2 days and a final day 8am to 4pm with a GPS logging device logging your route and every movement second by second - on the final day if your late back your points get smashed to bits minute by minute.

Well looking at the opposition it was clear although I was with a cracking pilot Jon with his top bollocks plane we had no chance of winning. So us at Team Hilton thought we would a spiffing idea to compete in the true spirit of the rally, right round Britain !!!!!

 Microlight Round Britain Rally 2012

With the weather gods against the rally a good number of folk dropped out in fear of their life and to be honest flying is just not fun in crap weather, so a few more dropped out - at no point here am I knocking them - these guys and girls had paid good money to enter the rally and safety comes first.

Up or down ? The forecasts said simply "shite weather" so we flew south with the weather chasing us at every move.

Day one, remember this is light aircraft microlight flying , Manchester to Cheshire, North Wales to South Wales to Cornwall to Devon, Dorset and finally landing at Shoreham (Brighton).

Time for some pics.

Cerne Abbas Giant

Needles

The Needles

Shoreham


Brighton

A walk to the B&B,  the weather now closing in on us with gale force winds for the night, thankfully the kind guys at Shoreham allowed us to squeeze the plane into the 1930s hanger.

Shoreham Airport

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The weather quickly changed now having caught up with us !!!


Shoreham


Shoreham Airport



I awoke the morning after a few beers the night before, a 5am rise and left the building for a early morning walk around Shoreham, returning to our hostelry and locked out - so I awoke the grumpy pilot to be told I had snored all night and I was a ****.

Day two, found us making a dash for the airport in a lull in the wind and off we shot up the Kent Coast and on to Norfolk.

 Deal Pier

 Ashbourne Kent

We landed at Northrepps Airfield near Cromer. The good folk of Northrepps had been expecting guests, 121 planes for a fly in with BBQ and beer at the ready - sadly the weather gods had put an end to this. 

Cromer Lighthouse


Northrepps Airport - Cromer


Northrepps Airport - Cromer



Checking the weather we quickly left, it was chasing us again !

Northrepps Airport - Cromer

We continued our journey, North Yorkshire, Northumberland, finally Scotland. Radio contact with Wick Airport advised the weather was king at Wick and we pushed on to Kirkwall, Orkney.

 Humber Bridge

Filey

 Scarborough

Whitby

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We landed at Kirkwall and the weather arrived as we did, resulting in us tucking the plane in behind a building and strapping the plane down for the night.

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 Kirkwall Airport

We found our host for the night, Pat,  to be the queen of landladies, running us in to town for our supper and back to the airport the next morning for 8am (not forgetting the Full English Breakfast to die for).

 Kirkwall, Orkney

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Day three finds us flying to North Ronaldsay, then down the west coast of Scotland for amazing views.

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  Taransay


_IGP9788


Into Cumbria at Millom, across to Garstang with views of local flooding - the weather we had escaped !!


_IGP9914

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The last turnpoint was Ince before a landing back at Barton, Manchester with a good half hour before the 4pm deadline.

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Not the most flattering photo ever taken of me, totally knackered
P1050252
Courtesy of Neil Warwick - big thanks.




Excitement seemed to build as word spread of our journey, as many of the pilots had had to retire from the rally or at least had been limited in flying time due to the  harsh weather conditions around the country. It would seem that luck had been on our side at that moment we said "south" and "round Britain".

Our final route round Britain from our GPS was bonkers !!!!

 The route we took, trail from our GPS logger

Then to our amazement we had won - well won Silver, but not to be sniffed at.

Thanks to John Moore for the organizing the rally, fellow competitors,my pilot Jon Hilton, all my friends for kind donations to Jon's favorite charity Clatterbridge Cancer 

Oh, better not forget the family for letting me take time out.





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