Nine days were set aside for the Technical Championship when competition was scheduled to begin on the 20th of August, but in increasingly typical British 'summer' conditions of rain and high winds, it wasn't possible to get the Qualifying Programme underway before noon the following day.
What followed shook the aerobatic flying world to the core. At 1212 local on Saturday 22nd August, the borrowed Zivko Edge 540, N540BW, in which Vicki Cruse was performing fell to the ground nose first, killing her instantly.
Ms Cruse had been the president of the International Aerobatic Club (IAC) since 2005, was a director and board member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and was crowned US National Unlimited Aerobatic Champion in 2007.
World Aerobatic Championship 2009 Flight Director and British Aerobatic Association Chairman, Alan Cassidy, speaking to GAR reflected upon the incident and explained the processes which followed.
"The first thing to say is that it was unprecedented. There had never been any incident on such a tragic scale as this at any World Championship competition nor at any domestic event organised by the British Aerobatic Association.
"Prior to the Championships getting underway we had to formulate a major incident procedure and this was put into action immediately.
"We felt it was important that there wasn't a knee-jerk reaction so we took some time out, held a top-level meeting amongst the organisers, the Silverstone management and the police and reassessed the situation.
"After much discussion, we revised certain aspects of the safety procedures and did all we could to make up as much of the time that we'd lost as possible.
"There were a handful of participants who did elect to withdraw from the event however."
Ms Cruse's team mate Norm DeWitt announced on the UAUSA blog that the competition would continue "in Vicki's memory", adding, "I know that Vicki would have wanted the contest to go on."
The action did resume at 1300 the following Monday, but with the new procedures in place, all of Wednesday and slots prior to 1400 on Thursday had to be written off, and it was only thanks to a massive effort on the part of the track's management that the situation was not worse, as they consciously made the decision to move people outside of the perceived danger area into 'safer' zones outside the box around the track.
In a bid to compensate for the lost time, flying was permitted to continue to 2000hrs each evening for the remainder of the contest.
The 'Q' programme was finally completed on the Tuesday and while the 'Q' wouldn't ordinarily be used in the production of an official result, given the lost time here there was a distinct possibility that it might be required on this occasion, and so the French Team's prospects were starting to look very good, with Renaud Ecalle and Francois Le Vot in first and second places respectively and Russian Alexander Krotov back in third. Gerald Cooper was the highest placed Brit in a very pleasing fifth.
And so the 'Free' Programme got underway with the running order reversed to allow the top ranked pilots to complete the round that would ensure that a result could be declared.
With the weather seemingly onside just 16 pilots were left to complete the 'Free' by the end of Thursday, and I would be present the following day for the scheduled culmination of the Technical Championship.
Friday the 29th started with lovely clear skies but a fierce accompanying wind that very quickly dragged in lots of low cloud and drizzle.
As we waited for the weather to improve for the competition flying, I was extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity to experience an aerobatic flight in an Extra 300L with "Smokey" Young, a former pilot of the F-111F with the 48th TFW at RAF Lakenheath, and who now spends his time on the Aero GP circuit and racing at Reno, amongst other things. A report on that ride and the subsequent interview will follow in due course.
Once back on the ground and feeling no worse for the experience (I actually had a silly grin on my face instead!) it became apparent that the decision had been taken to bring lunch forward in the hope that the forecasters were correct about the improved prospects for the afternoon. That gave me time to wander around the aircraft housed in the impressive temporary hangars that were currently being royally battered by the wind.
Lurking in amongst the Extras, Sukhois, CAPs and Edge 540s was a most striking little orange number, D-EIXA, a Sbach 342 - a two-seat version of the Sbach 300 - the brain-child of German Philipp Steinbach. It's certainly very easy on the eye and has been described by 'Sport Aerobatics' as being "one of the more impressive single-place competition airplanes that anyone's seen in a long time".
Philipp had chosen to compete with the two-seat model here, presumably in a bid to increase interest in the product - it certainly spent plenty of time 'pax' flying later in the afternoon. While it wasn't especially competitive so far as WAC 2009 was concerned, it'll be interesting to see how it (and more specifically the single-seater) fairs going forward.
With my walk around almost complete, there was a sudden surge of activity, and before I knew it a foreign sounding voice was directed at me, "Can you help?" I was being asked to help push Swiss, Pierre Marmy's Su-26M, HB-MSO outside! This sounded more promising!
And sure enough more and more aircraft emerged from their tented accommodation, with the odd propeller spinning into life up and down the line.
While the sky condition had improved (the odd break and a slightly higher base) the wind still remained on the limit and was causing plenty of drift issues for many of the competitors who, admittedly, were some of the lower ranked pilots.
The 'Free' concluded with Renaud Ecalle still out and clear for France, but the silver and bronze positions had been reversed from the 'Q'. In fact, the top six places were dominated by the French and the Russians, with the former holding all of the odd numbered spots and the latter the even.
At this point there was still every intention of flying the first of the 'Unknown' Programmes, and after a short break allowing for any protests to be lodged, Richard Pickin and Francois Rallet, the competition's two 'warm-up' pilots took to the skies to help get the judges' eyes in, with the latter being swamped by his comrades before he could climb out of his aeroplane at the end of his routine, all desperate for information about the routine and conditions.
Many good words had been heard about Svetlana Kapanina and it soon became apparent why. Watching her, it was as if the wind had completely disappeared; there was no drift at all, just perfect, straight vertical lines being flown. The reality was nothing of the sort, but I guess this is what separates those ranked near the top from those ranked near the bottom.
Hopes had been high of getting maybe as many as twenty competitors into the air before the close of play but as it turned out a band of rain moved in and brought an abrupt close to proceedings just before 1800.
Even then there was still, albeit ever-diminishing, hope that enough of the 'Unknown' could be flown the next morning prior to the Freestyle Championship and ensuing airshow got underway, but it wasn't to be, and the 2009 World Aerobatic Champion was crowned based only on performances in the 'Q' and 'Free' programmes.
And so Renaud Ecalle was hailed the 2009 World Aerobatic Champion, with Alexander Krotov taking silver and Francois Le Vot the bronze. Brits Gerald Cooper and Mark Jefferies both achieved top ten finishes in seventh and tenth respectively.
The Aerobatic Championship Team gold did indeed go to France, while the Russians claimed silver and the eighth, twelfth and sixteenth places of the top American trio proved good enough to earn them the bronze, denying the British team the medal that they'd craved.
Saturday, August 29th, the final day of competition, saw the theme of French domination continue as Renaud Ecalle added to his gold in the Technical Championship by taking the same in the Freestyle. Fifteen of the top pilots had competed for the title with Lithuanian Jurgis Kairys claiming the silver and honorary Brit Eric Vazeille, Team GB's coach, snatching the bronze.
More than 10,000 spectators had descended upon Silverstone and the event was brought to a close by an airshow that featured the likes of Team Guinot, the Red Devils parachute display team, the Swift Aerobatic Team and the Vulcan, amongst others.
Jeff Zaltman, World Aerobatic Championship organiser and Managing Director of Flying Aces reflected on the event:
"I'm delighted for Renaud for today winning both the World Technical Champion and the World Freestyle titles. And of course our congratulations go to France, the best Aerobatic Championship Team in the world. It has been both a challenging event in many ways and it has been an honour to have so many of the world's top pilots gathered here in the UK, for the first time the event has taken place here in 23 years. I want to extend a huge thank you to Silverstone, the BAeA, the FAI and all of our sponsors for their exceptional support."
Alan Cassidy added:
"As for the weather, there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to take the rough with the smooth - that's why the competition was ten days long, but obviously we lost additional time due to the crash.
"We just made sure we were on top of the job so that whenever there was good weather we flew and the main thing is that by the end of Friday we'd got enough of the competition completed to allow us to declare a winner and, from an organisational point of view, it went very well."
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