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Another Podium Finish

Posted on May 19, 2014 in Phil Jennings   

So summer is nearly here and it has kicked off in style in the UK with the start of the competition season. Early April saw us holding the first leg of the British Championship at the fantastic Hull Aero Club, as usual the British weather forecast was marginal so many pilots avoided the long drive north thinking it would be wasted. This was a mistake for them as we managed to set several good tasks and get an official league result. Myself and Mark Morgan shared joint first with Barney Townsend in third place.

We then returned to the same location for the British Open Championship in mid may, where we managed to attract more overseas pilots than British entries! We had pilots from France, Belgium, Estonia, and even 6 pilots from Qatar all aiming for the top.

Day one was an early start with a simple figure 8 slalom and the man to watch as usual was Alex Mateos. Although he was not flying his full on slalom equipment as this is a classic competition he still took and early lead and won with a good margin. Belgian Stefan Michils was second and myself in third.

We then continued the day with a snake navigation, this involved following a curved track on a map but 3 legs had to be done at a constant speed. You also had to start the course on an exact round minute (GPS time) There were also hidden gates along the track so you must not deviate otherwise points would be lost. Adventure team member Fabian Couderc had a great result on this winning the task, British pilot Alex Anderson scooped second pushing Alex Mateos back to third.

Around mid afternoon the thermals were building therfore it was time for a pure economy task. For this you have to fly for a minimum of 1 hour on as little fuel as possible. Alex Mateos won this but with such a huge margin it was incredible. He did 1h 50 minutes and only used 880ml of fuel with a Polini Thor 200!

Once the afternoon conditions calmed down we concluded with another pylon slalom. This had long straights between the pylons so really suited the faster wings. Alex first, an Qatar pilots Mohammed Alyafei second and Nasser Al Kuwari third.

Day 2 and another slalom in the calm morning conditions, followed by a navigation/speed/distance combination. This had 2 parts, part 1 was collect as many turn points on the map and part 2 was to fly as far as possible on a single section of marked ’corridor’. You only had 60 minutes from start to finish so it was a mad race around the nearby coastline followed by a distance leg. You also had to cross a finish gate before the allotted time was up so judging this was critical. Team Adventure captain and World Champion Pascal Vallée was first Stefan Michils 2nd and myself 3rd.

The afternoon allowed us to do an economy distance task with the aim of going the furthest between turn points using the least amount of fuel. British competition virgin Jamie Bartholomew much to his surprise won this with a good margin over 2013 British Champion Michel Carnet and World Champion Pascal!

Saturday morning and the final day started at 6.30 with a pylon slalom, then a challenging speed navigation turn point hunt. The conditions were safe but quite turbulent so it was a rough ride for 1hour 20 minutes on full speed around Hull. In fact the best part of that task was when my feet were firmly back on the airfield. Amazingly I got a third place with Alex and Michel joint first.

We finished the event and afternoon with a declared time navigation. Your given a map with a set route and gates to cross, before you leave you have to declare the time it will take you in seconds to get to each gate then go and do it. This can be very challenging especially as we had strong winds at altitude and trying to predict strength and direction can mean that your prediction cannot be flown as you don’t have enough trim range to speed up or slow down to suit.

So after 3 full on days the results were as follows

British Paramotor Champion 2014 Michel Carnet
2nd Place Philip Jennings
3rd Barney Townsend

British Paramotor Open Champion 2014 Alex Mateos
2nd Michel Carnet
3rd Pascal Valée

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