Interesting.
Having taken part in TopNav myself, and not being one of the twelve I can assure you...it would appear that there are a few issues here.
- The competition organiser who I spoke to on the day said that Solent had phoned complaining about 40 aircraft busting the airspace. Whats interesting is that only 27 crews flew that day.
- In the same conversation the controller admitted that he hadnt talked to any of those aircraft and did not have any registration details - only that they had Farnborough transponder codes. Competitors on the day had a set transponder code - so anything other than that it wasnt a competition aircraft.
- The same controller said that they had contacted farnborough who knew nothing about it all - incorrect - the competition had negotiated transponder codes and movements with farnborough - generally we were on farnboroughs freq maintaining a listening watch only - except for a MATZ penetrations.
Now Im not saying that Solent were not correct in saying there were 12 busts - but all of these would have had to have been travelling from the S to the N, with competition transponder codes. It should be remembered that not all aircraft travelling S to N in that area are necessarily competitors.
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I personnally would suggest that rather than jumping to conclusions about who was and wasnt a competitor you allow time for the CAA to analyse radar traces and ensure that ALL aircraft involved had departed FROM and arrived back AT White Waltham.
Without this evidence continued reporting of '12 topnav competitors busted solent airspace' smacks of tabloid journalism to the extent of trying to bring down what is an excellent competition.
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So....before we continue to blacken the name via hearsay - lets have the evidence please!