Donnington

[chopperchav]

Anyone fly into Donnington yesterday? Weather was awful so I opted to drive. Was amazed to see a few vfr machines flying in and out. What was it like up there? Respect to 206 pilot for maintaining vmc while filming race. He earn't his money.

However, after it took me 7 hours to drive home (3 just to get out of circuit) almost wish I chanced it (before anyone lectures me I am only kidding!).

[verticalhold]

I was there. absolutely stunned on listening to East Mids ATIS before leaving in the afternoon that the rain was light! As usual the EMA controllers did their usual excellent job in getting everyone in and out. In those conditions it must have been bloody hard.

Extremely glad not to have been VFR yesterday. The radar controller got me up IFR as quick as poss. Made life very easy.

VH:ok:

[jemax]

I was due to fly in from High Wycombe, drove down from Peterborough in the morning and it wasn't too bad, problem was Wycombe was just on the north side of front moving north and it became truly horrible. Canned it at about 11am. Watched race with mate.

On my drive back i was amazed to see a Jetranger following the A1 at 500ft ;) , it was really marginal.

I know someone was doing very short hops in and out

Hey what about Rossi was he VFR or IFR, awesome, I have raced round there on a bike recently and it is undescribably slippery in the wet, total respect

Oh for an IR!

[chopperchav]

Yeah, Rossi is a genius and a joy to watch. Imagine the frustration of competing against him.
I think everyone riding was IFR unless they were at the front of the pack.
Conditions also reminded me of the only track day I did on a bike at Brands. I think I could of run around quicker than I rode. High side city!

[jemax]

Brands GP was always my favourite circuit, seem to remember a highside there at Clearways.

Just don't know how those moto GP boys stayed up, awesome!

Packed the bike racing all in for heli's, got my CPL skills test next Friday!

Flying some people into Brands WSB on 7th Aug

[chopperchav]

Good luck! If you raced in British Superbikes, should be a piece of cake!

Interesting career move.

[jemax]

Not sure bout piece of cake, but certainly more expensive, was a Privateer in BSB til last year, didn't need any training or a test to do that though.

Ironically I need to do fire safety coure, and was involved in a rather warm firey incident at Oulton last year, so know all about that!

[Simon853]

Respect to 206 pilot for maintaining vmc while filming race. He earn't his money.


I watched it on tv and don't remember seeing any aerial shots at all. Were they actually flying during the racing? Maybe the footage was just unusable (like a lot of the trackside cameras!)

Si

[Whirlygig]

The helicopter will be used as a transmission midpoint. So the pictures from the bikes/ cars/ whatever is broadcast up to the helicopter which then transmits the signal to a large Outside Broadcast van which then transmits etc etc to Crystal Palace and then to your living room!

There is no camera as such in these helicopters; just a pilot and a hairy arsed Broadcast Comms engineer with a lot of boxes, knobs, dials, wires and copious quantities of gaffer tape. I reckon the BBC would fall apart if it wasn't for gaffer tape!

That may all sound simplistic but it's as involved as I ever wanted to get given I married such an engineer!

Cheers

Whirls

[The Famous Eccles]

27 hours after getting home my leathers,gloves and boots are still saturated.

Recently bought one of those fog-city inserts and was well inpressed with it,visor down before putting helmet on to stop water getting on the inside and it didnt fog up in the slightest,well impressed.

With that and the V-Wipe on my left glove meant I had good vision for most of the ride home,didnt notice if Rossi,Barros et al had a V-Wipe tho`

[jemax]

Do they do a fog city for an R44?

[Brilliant Stuff]

Or a Dauphin for that matter?

They would coin it if they did!

[jemax]

Hey what about tear offs....

Spoke to a mate who tried to fly out at about 7 and found cloudbase to be at 200ft had to land back along with a couple of others,

He got out in the end but very late in the day,

Right decision not to go, but then it never looked like much of a decision to me anyway!