Bombing runs

Bomb gone!

This is the draft of a report for the flying club's newsletter:

Spot Landing / Flour Bombing Contest,
Volunteer BBQ / Cricket Match, August 21, 2010

It was a cool, damp day for the Flour Bombing and Spot Landing contest at CYRO this summer, but fun was had, nonetheless. A dozen or so aircraft made fly-by circuits so that their bombardiers could observe the bombing target, the pilots then announcing their bombing runs, the bombardiers being “responsible for ensuring that a bomb is dropped in such a way as to remain within the confines of the Rockcliffe Airport and … does not hit aircraft, or buildings, or people.” Rainfall tended to erase the perimeter of the target so that flour from the used bombs had to be recycled as a target marker; it was later pointed out that this wouldn't have been such a good stratagem in the winter. Some bombs, falling to the north of the mark, came quite close to hitting spectators and adjudicators, and, despite everyone's best efforts, all the bombs dropped (identified and with streamers attached) fell wide of the mark, but Chris Hobbs and Nicola Vulpe in Cessna 172 C-FPTN won the trophy by dropping their bomb the least far from the mark. It was probably an advantage to be flying in a high winged aircraft with the co-pilot's door removed, although not so comfortable for their back seat passenger who was obliged to wrap herself in a blanket to keep warm. They landed in a downpour.

After burgers and sausages cooked out of doors by Tony, but eaten in the clubhouse because of the inclement weather, Nicole announced the competition results and presented trophies and prizes to much amusement and applause. Kevan received the winner's trophy for the Spot Landing competition, flying his Cessna 150, C-FIII. The objective of this contest was to "land in or as close to the box as possible," using power, flaps and sideslips as necessary, the box having been marked on Runway 09, with lines before and after it at 5 metre intervals.

A novel end to the party for the club’s volunteers and their families was the showing of the movie Amelia in the ground school classroom, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere, but in a rain-free interval before that happened, fortified by pieces of celebratory cake, Chris Hobbs managed to persuade a number of people, young and old, to practise some cricket-playing skills on the field, to the west of the new hangar.