Good Game!
I would like to add a bit of info about the event and the many competitors who were not part of the film staging. We went (by road) to the briefing on the evening before the flying started (nice curry!) as, having read the Propellerhead book, I was curious about what the competitors were going to be asked to do. I had considered taking part but didn't fancy tearing all over the sky for up to 11 hours a day, my co-pilot was with me on that point. My idea of flying is a couple of hours in the air followed by a pee break and a coffee at a flying club. Perhaps the Irish chaps had the right idea.
Loosely, competitors were given a list of waypoint spread all over the country for which they accrue points for visiting. Someway points require a landing and collecting a stamp on a card, others require flying over within a small radius, some have a specific time window to pass over for bonus points. The aircraft were allowed to be airborne from 8am until 7pm on the Friday, from the start window position until 7pm on the Thursday and from 8am until the finish window position on the Saturday. The start window time slot (2 minute intervals) until the finish window time slot gave every competitor some some 28 hours to play with. Every aircraft was equipped with a GPS based tracking device (no display) so that way point scoring and flying hours could be checked by the Rally Control.
Somebody worked out that the shortest route around all of the points was about 2600 nautical miles. The points were "adjusted" by a factor related to the aircraft Vne for each aircraft, hopefully to level the playing field.
So, the winner of the 3 axis, non GPS class (a SkyRanger) bagged all but 2 of the waypoints. I think that he missed the one in the Scilly Isles and one on a Scottish island. Put the other way round, he must have averaged nearly 100mph, in a rag and tube microlight, for about 9 or 10 hours a day and at the same time figure out where to get fuel without delay, whilst darting all over the countryside (map, compass, stopwatch) finding waypoints. To cap it all, they had to turn up at the finish line within a minute of their allocated time.
We flew up to watch the finish (they filmed me landing! I was on the telly) and witnessed them arriving back. Nearly every one crossed the line within their time window. The landings were "interesting" because there was somewhat more crosswind than the film would suggest, the approach was over/around trees, grain silos and some telegraph wires onto less than 300 metres of grass. At the other end was a good sized hedge and a mobile phone mast and cabin. All good stuff to focus the mind.
I have to raise my hat to all of those that took part. One young lad, recently qualified, with his first aircraft flew the event solo. That's gotta take some balls.
There were no accidents or infringements as far as I know.
What was on the telly was entertaining but not really representative of most competitors experience of the event.
Free publicity though...........
Rans6......