Brief Description: 3Rs Air Race Compton Abbas - Pt 2
Managed to fly the practice with a potential new racer, Fiona Mcaskill in the back and show her how I practice. Unfortunately the weather deteriorated and the Saturday race was cancelled.
Sunday was better and I felt I flew a really good race and crossed the line about 5th but knew I had some time to come back due to a close start. When the results were published I saw that I had been dsiqualified for turn two (Miss) and a 15 second penalty (cut) on the airfield turn.
I knew something was not right and checked my data and then made a protest like I did at Popham two races earlier. I was told "yes turn 2 is OK but your cut is not a cut it is a miss so you are still disqualified". I was not happy and the cut that became a miss was very tight (few metres) like at Popham. I then made a detailed protest submitting evidence from my GoPro that showed each airfield turn clearly but that was deemed inadmissibale as it was not 3Rs equipment - that just left the GPS logger.
I downloaded the manual for the logger to discover that the manufacture specification was <15 metres for 95% and >15m for 5% , which in a 100nm race would be 5nm and therefore reason would say that you should only determine GPS accuracy to15m. No <3 m is fine and my protest was dismissed.
Air racing is very expensive and I had been DQ'd twice in 4 races for a turn that after a protest was found to be OK then another turn that was previously a cut or not anything was then deemed to be a miss??? I have nothing left to prove and I felt I could not risk wasting further money/frustration if the accuracy of the GPS logger was being used to a higher degree than the manufacture has specified.
I therefore with some sadness resigned and will seek new challenges elsewhere. It has been a great experience and I had more success than I imagined. I have met some great people but as Chris Evans said after he left Top Gear "Breathe in, Breathe out - Move on"
