BAACTIVATE!

-- The BAAC Fly-In Site --

  Welcome to the BAAC Activities and Fly-In site! On this page you'll find information on our upcoming events and event reports for recent events. Not a member of the BAAC? Have no fear, our events are open to all interested parties. They usually have some sort of food (usually cooked by our excellent "chef du cuisine" (ahem) Chris Dupont) plus cold beverages. Questions about our events can be directed to me, Dylan Smith (dyls@alioth.net). If you have any event suggestions, please e-mail me with details.

  Details of the club's 2001 events are listed, along with our previous events. Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions.

-- Event Reports --

Saturday, 23rd June, 2001:

Robbie Peace takes first overall and first in the Private category with three exemplary landings

  Our second judged landing competition happened amid bright and sunny weather on Saturday morning. We had a great turnout - 16 people competed, and we had many more come to watch, hangar fly and have a burger. The event was highly successful! Once again, the contest itself was split into three categories: private, student and commercial. Competition was stiff (especially in the private division where there were lots of pilots in contention for the number one spot).

  The maximum score was 90 (the three judges had 10 points each per landing to award). To score at all, you had to land within the 200 foot long landing zone which was marked on the runway. The idea was to make your nicest "Checkride standard" approach and landing, touching down in the box. The three judges would then give marks, similar to a dive contest. Our ever-patient judges were Lee Simmons, Paul Lutes and Jim "Even God Couldn't Get A Ten" Frasier. To keep the judges sweet, they got the steak!

  The student pilots who took part did better than some of the private pilots. I know I need to work on my landing accuracy - last year I won the competition, but this year, I had a spot of bother in the accuracy department, missing the box on two landings (and consequently zeroing out those two!) Some days you fly like a Hoover of the "Bob" kind, other days you suck like a Hoover - of the vacuum cleaner kind! Still, we all need some humility some times...

  There were some interesting planes there - Dr. Jim Rose brought his Stearman along, and it was quite entertaining to watch that big draggy beast come around the pattern for the landings, the big propellor blowing our flour-marked landing box lines away in big swirls of dust (I'm sure the judges liked that one...) But there's nothing like the sound of a big radial engine at high power.

  Once the flying was over, the winners were announced. Robbie Peace took the private category and was the over all winner with a total of 76, a very high score. Matt McKay took the Commercial category with a score of 66.5 and Pat Smith took the Student category with a score of 60. Out of the rest of the field, Kieran Smart was biting at Robbie's heels for the private category, scoring 65. Robert Dues (who works the line at SPX) was in contention for the student category, scoring 47.9 (and beating his instructor!) Matt McKay was very comfortably in the lead for the commercial - his nearest competitor was Jeff Richichi who made 37.5. By and large, landing three times in the box would put you in the running...but one miss would blow it, and two misses were a disaster! I missed it twice and scored a diabolical 9.5. Could have been worse - I could have missed all three times and got a big fat zero!

My thanks have to go to Dee Boyd who did the vast majority of the work - he was the one who got up early to get the food and the place organized. Also, thanks to all who came - a fly in needs people to come along to be successful, and we managed to fill the lobby this year! We will be having another flyin, probably around September, and this will be our "message drop" competition.