Last week we looked at the basics of competition aerobatic flying and introduced Team GB.
This week we'll start by examining what it is that makes the World Aerobatic Championships what it is.
The competitive element of WAC 2009, hosted by the Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshire, runs for a period of ten days. The first nine of those are taken up with the Technical Championship, and finally the tenth day sees the Freestyle Championship take place.
I ask Mark Jefferies if it's fair to assume that the Technical Championship is considered the 'main event'?
"Yes, it is. 'The Classic', as we call it, is extremely demanding and it takes a very skilled handling pilot indeed, who's on top of his game on the day, to win it."
The Classic comprises four distinct programmes. Firstly there's the Qualifying Programme (known as 'Q'). Q is what's called a 'known programme'. That means that the pilots are told in advance exactly what they're expected to do, and they will have had plenty of opportunity to practice it. While no-one will be ejected from the competition for producing a poor score, there is scope for elimination if the entry is deemed to be unsafe. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened!
Although the scores in the Q don't count towards the final competition, it is judged in exactly the same way as the latter programmes, and everyone taking part will still be aiming to be in one of the top five spots as it sends a very positive message to the opposition and makes everyone take note.
The first round proper, cunningly referred to as 'Round 1' is what's known as a 'Free Programme', that is, the pilot can fly any sequence he or she wishes (and for the record, men and women compete on a completely even footing in the world of aerobatic flying). It's essential that they show a high degree of technical difficulty and a wide variety of flying techniques. As we'll discover later, each aircraft has its own strengths and weaknesses and this is a good opportunity for the pilots to play to theirs!
Other than the second round being called just that, this is where things become a little less certain. Both Rounds 2 and 3 consist of 'Unknown Programmes', that is, those taking part have absolutely no idea what it is that they're going to be asked to fly until they've completed their previous routine. On top of that, the 'unknowns' are made up of 'figures' submitted by each of the competing nations. That leads to them trying to outfox each other by choosing figures that are difficult to fly well without practice.
Mark explains the process in a little more detail: "Each nation will choose a figure, if there are too many nations to produce a sequence (ie there would be too many figures in the sequence), you pull a number from a hat to determine whether you get the chance to choose a figure or not.
"Then, say we've got eight, ten figures - I'm not sure of the numbers - that meet the criteria, the pilots can draw them out into a sequence with linking figures - joining figures - and then the final sequence is chosen by the international jury"
As the competitors have to fly the unknown sequence without practicing it, I wonder what methods they can use to help them prepare?
"Preparation is to walk through it in our minds and just draw from experience when we're flying."
The final entry for the Technical Competition features 64 pilots, representing 19 countries and four continents, and there are both team and individual medals to be won. In order for a nation to be eligible for the team competition it must have three scoring pilots taking part.
The Freestyle Competition on the other hand involves just twenty pilots, and three of those are not taking part in the Technical Competition. Those include Team GB's coach, Eric Vazeille, who, despite being a Frenchman, will be competing under the GB flag.
Unlike The Classic, the sequences flown here will typically be three and a half to four minutes long, and be accompanied by both smoke and music. It's more akin to airshow flying than anything else and the pilot is free to do whatever they wish. As well as technical merit, consideration is also given to the artistic side of the performance by the judges.
With nine days set aside for the 64 pilots to fly four times, what scope is there for holding out for better weather so that everybody can experience the best conditions possible?
Gerald Cooper explains: "Yeah, they won't wait for better weather. What they'll try and do - particularly with it being in this country - they'll think it's going to get worse rather than better, so if it's good enough to fly, people will fly. There are wind limits, cloudbase limits…"
Tom Cassells steps in, "Rain - if there's any moisture in the air you can't fly the CAP. You can't stop snaps if there's water on the wing…"
Gerald continues, "Yeah, it's the same with any of the carbon fibre wings too. It's a safety issue really."
Those limits, Nick Onn tells me, are 24 knots for the wind limit and normally 800m for the cloudbase limit. The latter immediately strikes me as being something that could cause considerable disruption at Silverstone.
That's confirmed by Richard Pickin, "In this country, at this time of year, the bottom often sits between 600 and 800m and I can see us losing a lot of time due to that. On top of that the box actually sits 20m higher at Silverstone because there's a building slap bang in the middle of it and we have to maintain 100m clearance of it, so we actually need 820m there."
And should the worst come to the worst and it's not possible to complete the full competition inside the assigned nine days, the winner will be crowned based on what it has been possible to fit in.
This seems a bit of a moot point with some of the British Team who tell me that champions have been crowned in the past (I'm not sure if they're specifically referring to the Worlds' or not) based on only a handful of competitors getting their first rounds in…
Another vagary about the WAC is that this time around a radar system, supplied by QinetiQ, will be on hand to determine any 'box busts'.
Mark explains: "In this competition we've got a radar tracking system which takes away the line-judges looking down a piece of string. A pendulum basically, saying was he in the box, was he out the box? So that's what the radar's being used for in this case. I believe they've got some software where they can see it in 3-D, so that it'll just provide a trace."
Of the 24 previous runnings of the WAC, the Russians/former-USSR have been responsible for supplying one third of the former-champions. The French also feature prominently, with four winners. I ask Mark what it is that's historically set them apart:
"Free aircraft, as much training as you could possibly want, they've got professional trainers. It's like the French; I spoke with Renaud Ecalle and I said to him, 'How many flights per week?' He said, 'Oh, about 22. Three or four per day'
"The Russians are all flying instructors, they've got a massive country to choose from and that's what sets them apart; aeroplanes provided, and they're the cream of the Nation's pilots to start with."
Nick tells me that the Russians will use the M3 variant of the Sukhoi Su-26 - his type of choice - (it has a different leading edge on the wing to his standard version, and a 450hp engine in it) and suggests the situation in their native country's changed quite a lot in more recent times:
"They've had lots of problems with it, and they'll only let them fly them in competitions, so they've been training in beat up old (Su-) '31s. In fact, prior to coming over to Sherburn (in-Elmet) they'd not been training at all, so they'll be relying on reputation and experience.
"They're all State-sponsored, but there's no money, so they're not really sponsored at all. Russia's got plenty of money but the aerobatic team haven't got much, so they rely on people like Svetlana (Kapanina) to go and do airshows and cough up a bit."
From sitting listening to the pilots talk about their peers it's clear that while there's a very healthy respect for each other's ability in the cockpit, there is still a good spirit between the opposing teams as well.
Tom tells me, "There's a lot of healthy banter - a lot of camaraderie too between all of the pilots, nearly everyone in every nation. I mean, there's always one or two, but in the main there's quite a healthy rivalry."
Having just touched on aircraft type, it hasn't escaped my attention that Team GB has seven pilots at its disposal and between them they fly four different types of aircraft! How does that work?
Mark gets the opportunity to fight the Extra's corner first: "The top three aircraft are the CAP232, the Sukhoi and the Extra 330, and it would be just personal choice as to why you're flying one and not the other. The French are flying the Extra 330 now; after a fatality with the CAP they said 'no more CAPs', and I think they destroyed the six aircraft they had.
"The other ones of course, when you pay £120-£140K for an aeroplane, when one falls apart, you don't destroy it - because you can't afford to, privately - but the military can, so they (CAP) came up with a strengthening modification and there hasn't been a failure since. The CAP is a wooden aeroplane and as they get older the glued joints get looser, the wood dries out and things like that, so for aggressive pilots, ultimately I imagine people will be moving along to the Extra.
"A lot of the personal preference comes down to what you can afford. You're looking at around €200K for a CAP; the Sukhoi, a very strong, robust aircraft - they've never had one fall apart, a few cracks I think, but nothing major - again, a couple of hundred thousand Euros. So personal choice, what you can afford of those three aeroplanes is what it boils down to, I suppose, and because you'll be buying a Sukhoi or a CAP second hand, what's its past history? There are quite limited numbers available."
At the very end of 2008, Mark traded in his ever faithful 300-model for the 330SC.
"The 330, even though it looks like the 300 is a totally different aeroplane to fly - the performance characteristics are far superior. It's a much lighter aeroplane, by at least 60 kilos, if not more; it's got larger control surfaces which are physically lighter - there's less mass in the surface - there's less mass in the wing, and they are much more powerful because the aerodynamic balance is better. The mass is important because, take for example the wing, if the wing is very heavy, when you set it rotating, it is harder to stop. If you've got something that's heavy it's harder to deflect from the line it wants to take, so the roll rates in a heavy wing takes a long while to accelerate up to speed, and then a long time to decelerate. A lighter wing will get to its rotation rate much quicker and likewise stop, which is important because you mustn't wobble as you finish the roll."
Was the change made purely with the WAC in mind?
"Yes. The aircraft is very good for the Unlimited competitions. It's the only production certificated aircraft available at Unlimited level - there are no others. The Sukhoi went bust and it was never certified; CAP went bust and it was sort of certified but it didn't meet all of the criteria properly, and they had a few fatalities; all of the other Unlimited aircraft are home-build 'hotships'. Being a certified aeroplane you can have some comfort in the fact that the structural testing and design aspects have been looked at properly, and that there's been a very conscious effort to make sure that everything is as strong as it should be."
With Mark's allegiance to the Extra stable clear, I fully expect Tom and Gerald's opinions to be just as strong about their chosen steed, the CAP232, and I had a hunch that Tom in particular wouldn't let me down!
"No other aeroplane in the world, past, and I don't know how they're going to get one to be as good….. I flew the Extra in Romania this last month, and it's a nice aeroplane, but it's not as good as the 232…"
Gerald elaborates, "Unfortunately they've stopped building them, but they are the best aeroplane, certainly for Unlimited. The Sukhois are as good but you need to have a professional engineer or be a full-time hobbyist doing it because of the heavy engineering. In performance terms the (Su-) 26 is as close as you'll get. It's a lot stronger than the CAP, so it has that in its advantage but it will not tumble, or it's not as good in knife-edge flight - the same with the Extra or any other aeroplane. The CAP is a very short coupled aeroplane with a large rudder, and it just tumbles better than anything else out there, and has a yawing capability second to none."
Nick's the Team's Sukhoi man and, pointing over to his Su-26, his first words on the subject are, "Gorgeous, isn't he?!" The aircraft still wears the scheme it wore at Le Bourget in the '90s when taking part in one of the Breitling events, namely black, white and green colours that rather ingeniously read 'Sukhoi' down the length of the fuselage, and 'Su-26' across the tops of the wings - though most people only realise that when it's pointed out to them.
"I wouldn't fly anything else", Nick says succinctly.
Kester Scrope and the Zivko designed Edge 540 complete the picture, but unfortunately their arrival at Sywell has been delayed. Evidently, however, the Edge 540 is the most commonly-used type in the Red Bull Air Race World Series, where it's also been by far the most successful type, with all past champions having flown it. Interestingly the type is hardly referenced by any of the other pilots here.
So with all of these different characteristics and seemingly each having advantages over the others, is the judging all about the pilot or is there just a tinge of it being about the plane too?
"Because of the mistakes that you can make - the rates of rotation are so high - you can easily make a big mistake. The advantage is, when you've got one of the top four aeroplanes, you're in the running. It really does come down to the pilot more than the aeroplane." Gerald says assertively.
Looking down the CVs of Team GB's pilots, it's patently obvious that they're all high achievers - Managing Directors, Chief Operating Officers, ex-Royal Navy Officers and airline pilots. Does that therefore mean that you need bags of cash behind you to get started in this sport, and if so, how much are we talking?
"Quarter of a million!" is the wry, shouted response from Tom before Gerald can begin.
"Realistically, if somebody's already got a license, they need to go along to a club - and there are a number of them in the country - to taste aerobatics; Tom operates a club up in Yorkshire; Richard's based down at Headcorn, they've got entry level aerobatic aeroplanes; there are a number of people in the UK who do train and are good, and the thing to do is go along, get taster, get some training and start flying. If you're interested and you enjoy it and you're motivated, it's quite an addictive sport. You can buy shares in an aeroplane, and obviously, as Tom's suggested, if you do so in a top-level aeroplane it's going to cost you a lot of money, but if you want to buy a share in something that could make you competitive at a lower level, £5-10K might be enough, so there are inexpensive ways of getting involved."
And other than selling the aeroplane on again, what scope is there for recovering the money you put into it all? Can it ever be anything more than just an expensive hobby?
Mark responds: "There's no prize money at the European or World Championships, but there are some VIP specialist competitions - aerobatic display competitions - by invitation, who might take half a dozen of the world's top pilots. Those competitions will have prize money, but generally speaking they're very few and far between!
"But, results in competition provides you with a name and a platform to then promote airshow flying, where there is sufficient money to purchase the Extra I've got and the return in five or six years time."
As discussed last week, Mazda have come on board and provided the Team with some sponsorship. Does their decision to get involved imply a desire to bring competition aerobatics to more of a mainstream audience? Is there potential for someone to come along and reshape the landscape in much the same way Red Bull have done with the air racing scene?
This is a topic that Nick clearly feels passionately about, "In all honesty I hope not. This has been going on forever - aerobatic flying - it's a sport, it's not an airshow and you can't make it an airshow. They tried with Breitling, so they had aeroplane after aeroplane taking off with smoke and music, doing freestyle… Take the Freestyle Championship at the Worlds. You have twenty pilots taking part and probably only five of them are really worth watching. After that it just becomes tedious. At least at an airshow you've got lots of different types. I just don't see how you can turn what we do into an airshow. We tried that ten years ago.
"I was involved with doing commentaries for Eurosport and we tried an education program with split-screen explaining what was being done when and why, and it really is an uphill battle because there just isn't the interest, and that in itself isn't a bad thing. It's our sport and it's developed over the years to be pretty much the same as what it was when it started - it is what it is. You all take turns to go and fly the sequence and you get points for being accurate or not. There's no way you can make that a spectator sport."
Nick's views, it seems, are not necessarily mirrored by CIVA (Commission Internationale de Voltige Aerienne), the sport's governing body:
"I was at the CIVA meeting - where I'm effectively the shop steward - and they were going on about how we could get this, that we should have music and smoke, it gets more public involved, but what's it going to achieve? It's an airshow contest and that's just a waste of everyone's time.
"The analogy I used is with Breitling. They started off with the best twelve pilots, and that wasn't so bad, but people got bored with it; Farnborough didn't want it; Le Bourget didn't want it; America gave up on it and it ended up in China, where they had to cancel one event because there were a hundred million people swamping the aeroplanes! That's fine, take it out to South-East Asia, cigarette sponsorship, still get that, but it just wasn't interesting…"
And with that it's time for the Team to get some lunch and debrief about the morning's flying, prior to going off and do it all over again in the afternoon.
The third and final piece in this series will come from the World Aerobatic Championships themselves, as we take a look at how effective all of this training and effort has been.
Editor's Note: Since this piece was compiled Vicki Cruze, president of the International Aerobatic Club, was tragically killed during the Qualifying Programme at Silverstone when her Edge 540 failed to recover from a vertical dive for an as yet unconfirmed reason. GAR would like to dedicate this series of articles to Ms Cruz and her friends and family at this difficult time. GAR wants to interact with its readers so if you have a question for the author or a comment to make on this feature, please click on the button below. The best comments will appear right here on GAR.2010-02-12 - Mike Kruiper
Again a great article, which gives people good insights into aerobatic competition. Having met Mark Jefferies I can say he is a very friendly guy who loves what he does best...Aerobatics!!
Cheers,
Mike
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