Interesting video - thanks. A suggestion for a blue sky day under a bubble canopy is a couple of baseball caps… You then don’t need to continually hold your hand up to shield the glare. Helps to avoid skin cancer also (big problem here in Australia). Cheers
When flying normally, most of the racers do, but they’re during races and race practice. You have aircraft everywhere around you, especially in turns, so it’s important to not introduce anything that blocks your visibility even slightly.
Very good video John and by the sounds of it your did really well in the race cockpit. I did film the Sandown race a couple of years back but that was from the ground! Excellent stuff!
I did air racing for a year in my Cherokee G-ATYS. Best I ever achieved, with my Navigator Sam Kidd, was 3rd place. Great fun and a great crowd! I became unhappy with the handicap system, which IMHO does not take into account the difference between those with variable- vs fixed-pitch props (massively changes rate of acceleration out of turns, which for me the handicap numbers don't evenly apply to for all courses). But I'd encourage anyone to play... its sharp flying, in a crowd and is GREAT FUN!! Vans RV's almost always win / highly placed.
Absolutely fantastic video and it's not surprising it took so long to edit. Great to see all the shots and hear the commentary from the other planes too.
Looks great fun and April could be a date in my diary. John, i think you could donate one of your Flying Reporter caps to Johnathon...would save him saluting all the time.
I wish I'd had time to go into this. As I understand it - Aircraft are either flown at full throttle, or if the aircraft isn't capable of flying thus, it would fly at a pre determined throttle setting. The handicapping is computed before the race, by flying a handicapping course with a GPS logger. For aircraft that can't fly full throttle - they fly their pre determined power setting, and a camera is used to ensure the pilot doesn't cheat.
@TheFlyingReporter thanks Jon. Also, as it involves flying a course over the ground then ground speed is more relevant than airspeed which means that winds would need to be taken into account, except that they vary... can't help thinking that it might be a fun day out but it's not really a proper competition that can be won by saving a few seconds here and there... I'd like to be wrong
It uses a weighted rolling average over a number of races and does indeed take into account wind speed, temperature, etc etc. over the years they have increasingly adapted the system to account for more and more variables. GPS handicapping has been in use since the late noughties
Why dont you talk about the commercial lobbying of the weak CAA to allocate large amounts of GA aviation airspace to commercial companies for retail logistic drone operations ? The DRONE LICENCING of operators by the CAA of , radio controlled aircraft, commercial and leisure drones. throws up the following points. Currently the GA community is aligned with the reality of the future policy as: GA airspace below 5000 ft around major urban centres in the UK is currently congested to the point there is no further space for new categories of commercial drones exceeding 6 lbs in weight.( calculated to not break the windscreen and kill the occupants of a vehicle travelling at 30 mph ). Commercial Drones are restricted to uncontrolled airspace above 5000 ft over international waters away from urban centres. Commercial Drones will be classified as helicopters and regulated as such. There is no appetite for the UK taxpayer to put in a new lower airspace control system and infrastructure at the cost of an estimated 154 billion pounds over ten years for commercial drone operations. The police and border force take the view that increases in border excursions and criminal activity will not be an acceptable price to consider additional stand alone commercial or leisure drone regulation in UK airspace. The failure to make it clear to a collapsing government the implications and the position of the future of GA is at this point is not a viable proposition.
