What beautiful weather Camden Haven turned on for our Valentines Pilot Proficiency Day for February 2016. With superb flying weather and wonderful company, it couldn't help being one of those perfect weekends, especially when we have Vicky and Ted Whitfield, Pat Koppers accompanied by her daughter and Bill and Lyndal Coote joining us at the event. Veronica and I checked into our "Presidential Suite".
The fitting finale to a wonderful Valentines Weekend occurred on Sunday morning with Alex Pursehouse in his trike and Michael Bullock on board carrying a collection of red roses. They flew low over the spectators and at the opportune moment released the roses for the excited women and men (especially Paul Hayler retrieving roses on behalf of Phobe-Ann Needham :-)). A very special moment so thanks guys for this wonderful gesture. Watch below video!
Our huge thanks also goes to John Hayler and the other proud owners of this incredible airfield for allowing us to fly so freely in and out of this beautiful place. Many of our pilots and familes camped over for the Saturday night and shared in the bonus of watching yet another classic aviation movie "Air America" in the rustic atmosphere of the hangar, complete with servings of aromatic pop corn. A truly memorable experience.
A special thanks go to Bruce Dunlop and John Hayler for doing the difficult and demanding job of the air judging for all of Saturday during the PPD. As well as being scored on his efforts each pilot is also mentored if needed during the challenging exercises at a demanding airfield.
For our Valentines PPD we had fifteen (15) pilots participate as well as several others who flew in but didn't compete.
Flour Bomb Event
Our first activity to promote accurate flying was the Flour Bomb event. Each pilot had to overfly the target area at 200 ft and decide when to release the "bomb". Our most accurate bombers on the day were :
1st - Ivan Daniel - 47 pts (Ivan was only 3 paces from the target)
2nd - Ed Godschalk - 39 pts
3rd - Craig Whiting - 38 pts
Go Around Activity
Most of the pilots who flew had an excellent appreciation of the Go Around from low level and the correct sequence of applying power and reducing flap levels without experiencing any sink. 10 of our 15 pilots all received perfect scores in this event. These included: Greg Connors, Jon Maguire, Ed Godschalk, Craig Whiting, Mike Bullock, Glenn Cleary, Bill Coote, Graham Smith, Ivan Daniel and Paul Hayler with the others scoring 30 pts.
Spot Landing
To gain their points for this event, the pilot had to land with the nose wheel well above the ground with the column hard back as well as land within the target area in the middle of the runway.
1st - Jon Magure and Mike Bullock - 40 pts
2nd - Bill Coote and Greg Connors - 30 pts
Overall Winners
1st - Craig Whiting - 98 pts
2nd - Ivan Daniel - 87 pts
3rd - Jon Maguire - 84 pts
Well done to all of our participating pilots. All of our spectators were able to see some very skilful flying from close up at the Camden Haven Airfield.
Cheers,
