Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
#1705969
In case anyone would like to see the flights that I have been describing here from my perspective, here are my head-cam videos of each competition flight.

The first one is a slight cheat. For some reason my camera stopped recording the competition flight on take-off, so this is my practice flight in the box from the day before, but annotated with the scores from the competition flight.


Programme 1 (Free Known):



Programme 2 (Free Unknown 1):



Programme 3 (Free Unknown 2):



Programme 4 (Free Unknown 3):

Cub, Dave W, Josh and 5 others liked this
#1706039
Funny old thing, life moves on. And on, it's basically unstoppable ... Back in the 70's a Pitts was a pretty expensive toy, at least the good ones were. My old very ordinary S1 is worth 35k now, and a good S1T maybe 45k, and the Yak-55M that followed (shared 4 ways) eventually went for about 30k ... bit of a lumbering aeroplane, but lovely to fly. Dave's CAP-231EX is a lovely toy, probably as inexpensive a mid-capable carbon wing super-ship can be, and just right for this 2nd Intermediate world championship and undoubtedly a good bet for Advanced too. We also have here a slightly venerable Edge-360 that is certainly up to the job but a bit small to impress the judges, a CAP-232 that you can buy right now for somewhere north of 150k, a fairly new Extra-330SC that is owned by 4 people and probably represents the best way to go into Intermediate, Advanced and Unlimited (in Chris Brook's and Phil Burgess's hands it will be at the Chateauroux WAC in August), and an Extra-200 which to be honest is a bit short of puff for the weight and size. There are quite a few Extra-300 variants of various ages here, all of them good enough to win with, a Zlin-50LS that the Czech's are flying the legs off, a pretty historic CAP-21 from Italy, etc. etc. but no Pitts'es or other bipes.

The fact is, if you want to play in this glorious game you need some capable kit, plus a number (many ...!) of sessions with a good trainer on the ground telling you how to improve the appearance of your flying. Burn Avgas is the #1 message, #2 is choose a capable machine - which need not be a best-of-breed boys toy but must be able to do the job, that is - beat the others when flown well. Either Nick Wakefield or Alan Cassidy were the last to tote an S1 at an international event, and if I remember right Alan got a silver in one programme so it can be done. At the last WIAC a South African blew everyone away with a Zlin-50 that was flown to within an inch of its life, really good to see. This game is about learning to do it right and then pulling it out of the hat when demanded, and that's a tough call whether you have a Pitts (not loved by judges, just a blob rasping around the sky) or an EA-330SC that will lead you rapidly into +9/-6G corners that are in reality wasted on the judges but incredibly hard work for you.

Bottom line - if you want to supp at this table you need a suitable spoon and a bag full of time training with a good teacher on the radio. In some countries - the US and parts of Scandinavia for example - the current move seems to be to play a calmer game, and this does make life more doable for people in domestic events with older planes, but then the rest of the world keeps moving on forward and a gap will confront anyone who wants to come and play on the big stage. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice ...

The results of this event are all done now at https://www.civa-results.com/ and the WGAC/WAGAC, EAAC and WAC are to follow. Come and have a look, you'll love it.
deltacharlie liked this
#1706262
Ridders wrote:Phenomenal efforts Dave and thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed and highly informative series of postings together with pictures.

And the flying.... wow :thumleft:


This has been a great read. I echo Ridders comments above. Appreciate your time and effort to share the sport. Good luck going forward.
#1706512
Bill McKinnon wrote:
Ridders wrote:Phenomenal efforts Dave and thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed and highly informative series of postings together with pictures.

And the flying.... wow :thumleft:


This has been a great read. I echo Ridders comments above. Appreciate your time and effort to share the sport. Good luck going forward.


Thanks.

As you can probably tell from my posts, I love this sport. I know that it is a minority sport, I know that it is not what every pilot, let alone every member of the general populace aspire to, but I can't for the life of me understand why not.

My intent with this series of posts was, recreation on my part, I like writing, but also I hope to at least demonstrate, if not share, some of my enthusiasm and convey a bit of why I find it so fascinating.

I am pleased that people seem to have enjoyed reading my ramblings, and hopefully enjoyed following the fortunes of the team.
mmcp42, kanga, MachFlyer and 6 others liked this
#1717082
The organisers of WIAC 2019 have posted the competition videos this week.

Each flight in the competition is recorded so that the judges can review them if there is some disagreement (VAR style).

One of my flights is missing from the list, my most successful one :roll: but here are my flights that were posted.

Free Known


Free Unknown 1


Free Unknown 3