Booker Gliding Club

Mountain Man Yodels Away with Flatlands Cup

The 2009 Booker Regionals came to a close today with Serres Bimble Blogger, Songster and ex Volvo driver, Jon Gatfield, stepping up to receive the winner’s trophy.

Jon with the winner’s trophy

“I don’t know how he did it” said second placed Denis Campbell ( Starship 370) , the booky’s favourite having won the comp so many times before. “and he sings quite well too!”
Third placed Jim White, appearing in his least interesting shirt of the week was lost for words!

Jon flew his ASW 27 consistently well throughout the week in some challenging conditions. As he rightly said, when receiving the winner’s cup from Director and CFI Mike Collett; “ the competition was well directed, had outstanding met briefings from Dr Nils Wedi from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting and superb task setting from Brian Forrest .
All of us participating echoed these remarks. Mike Collett’s ability to direct soundly and wisely, the amazing accuracy of Nils’ forecasts and Brian’s uncanny knack of setting the right task in the right area all went to make it a really good quality event. Thank you guys for doing such a professional job. We all had a great time.

Brian, Mike, Nils and Bob

And a big thank you too to everyone who gave up their time to help. In Particular; Heggie and the maintenance team for fielding five superb tugs, Bob Davey and the tuggies for the super quick grid launches that enabled us to grab Nils’ ‘weather windows’. Julian and the cadets for ground marshalling and wing running. Shelagh and Hillary for manning the office throughout and administering the entries, loggers and retrieves etc. Steve Brown for his dexterity in the scoring department . Gary Nuttall for the chatty blog and scores of members who helped out and whom I’ve not named. But lastly thanks to those pilots who participated, for your good airmanship throughout and the friendly and sporting nature of the comp.

Booker members, you can all be proud!