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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 1298.PDF
FLIGHT, 6 July 1951 BEHIND the AIR-RACING SCENE Or, Why Officials Wear Harassed Expressions as well as Armlets A LDERMAN SMOG, the absurdly wealthy, but civic- /% conscious Mayor of Blacktown, patted his midriff as an old and tried friend and declared : "We'll give lads a coop." •''.• /.—--. ^ - Well, if the story didrPt acti&Jl^'-start like that it was probably on similar lines in different circumstances?~TKe point;is that, once a cup or trophy has been put up for an air race, it marks the beginning of a long and arduous route to the finishing line . . . and after. _ Since so few people seem to have even the vaguest notion of the organization and work involved, here is a guide to the behind-the- scenes structure of the average aixjace. Detail may vary : obviously, more will go into*die England-New Zealand Race of 1953 than into an almost private race at any small "Saturday afternoon" airfield. But the whole thing is D / a matter of degree rather than principle. s ' ' ' \ Fundamentally, the Royal Aero Club is the B . J ." responsible body for air racing in Great Britain —and, indeed, for all sporting flying, record attempts, observed flights and so on. It is, in this country, the body solely recognized by the F.A.I. In the Club is a committee, usually termed the Racing Committee, though the official title is "Records, Racing and Competitions Committee." It is this experienced knowledge- able, and hard-worked little band which submits to the Main Committee its recommendations for a race. Let us examine an important race—just for a lark, we will suppose it is for the Stalin Samovar. This race will be handled by approximately 70 officials, most of whom are professional men, business executives, or Service chiefs in their daily work, but who bring their voluntary aid to organizing a sporting event. The trunk of the tree of officials is made up of the Stewards. These gentlemen do not dispense drinks: they correspond to a board of directors. Immediately below them (for, like all family trees, this one grows upside-down) is the Chief Executive, and his1 is really the whole responsibility of the meeting. Normally, for a big meeting, Colonel Rupert Preston, C.B.E., Secretary-General of the Royal Aero Club, would hold this position. Clerk of the Course Next come the Chief Judge with his Assistant Judges, who themselves will be assisted by, probably, the Royal Observer Corps. And then comes the most important man in the flying side —the Clerk of the Course. He has control of all flying and ground functions, and at the recent weather-damned races at Hatfield he was Douglas Scoff ham, D.F.C., who works in the offices of the Royal Aero Club under Colonel Preston. The Clerk of the Course is the focal point of three very im- portant officials : (1) The Chief Starter and Timekeeper, (2) The Chief Handicapper, and (3) The Chief Ground Marshal. The last has two major assistants : Deputy Chief Marshal (Starting Line) and Deputy Chief Marshal (Competitors), but there are several other Deputy Marshals—for example, Deputy Marshal (Visiting Aircraft). Out on the limb we find the Press Secretary, who is directly responsible to the Chief Executive. Similarly, there is the Secretary of the Meeting, whose task is to issue all formal paper-work as set out in the R.Ae.C. Competition Rules. Note here one important point. Although every pilot must have a valid Pilot's Licence to take part in a meeting he must have also a Competitor's Licence. The withdrawal of this Competitor's Licence is the discipline which the R.Ae.C. can exercise, for with- out this document thg^competitor cannot compete. This then, is the.thu& of the organization; but obviously there are numerous other officials (M.C.A., Fire, Police, Traffic and so on) who all have an important part. Long before the meeting is even announced, mole activity is going on. We have, for example, the Stalin Samovar—so where shall the race be held? Light aircraft normally require grass fields, but jets want runways if possible and 1,500 yards as an absolute minimum, with good approaches thrown in. Having found what appears to be a suitable venue, then we must consult the Ministry of Civil Aviation or a municipal authority, or both, and possibly the Aerodrome's Owner Association for good measure. Next headache is the date. It must not clash with any odier F.A.I, function, nor must such things as Army manoeuvres, Silverstone, the S.B.A.C. Display and so on be disregarded. Only four months of the year, allowing for holidays and the weather expected, are available, and normally only Saturdays are probables, for obvious reasons. Horse-race meetings and Wakes Weeks are relevant factors. Then comes the Estimated Cost of the Meeting, with which is coupled Estimated Revenue. Certain costs can be gauged accurately, e.g., cost of Police services; but the 'Revenue can depend on the accessibility (to the public) of the venue; traffic facilities; parking facilities; and, of course, the "Entertainments Tax, since about 49 per cent, of ticket .money goes down the national drain. . .. _/\ Assuming all this to have been accomplished, a Course to.-be Flown has to be decided..- The finish must be at Jew altitude; turning points must be cijnspicuousVthe course rniy not-go over breeding zones or over a chance agricultural show; must avoid radio masts, prohibited..areas and smoke belts. Furthermore, it Z7-" must be personally traversed and inspected— not only are most maps out of date, and newly built housing estates not therefore shown, but HURREN ; map contours are only averaged and there may be high trees at the end of a valley which alter, from a flying racing view, what would otherwise be an acceptable line. Now multiply all the foregoing by five or six. The reason is that this preliminary work has to be submitted to the Racing Committee, which will then make its choice after examining each proposition in detail. The chosen venue, date, course and general arrange- ments are then submitted to the Main Committee for approval or otherwise; and thus, weeks or even months, may slip by before the "first announcement" of the proposed race is made. Once the announcement is made, the preliminary regulations, conditions and closing date for entries declared, then two main lines of work are concerned : the ground organization and the flying organization. On the ground, the overall layout of the meeting has to be planned, then quotations received. Telephones, public address, fencing, catering, car park, tentage, safety, traffic; diese are just a few main headings covering an intricate affair calling for real organ- izing ability. On the flying side, seven different forms are required from each entry: these must be scrutinized and accepted or rejected. General headings are : insurance, verification, turning points, marker flares, survey of course, allocation of racing numbers, painting racing numbers, petrol, servicing and maintenance. There were no fewer than 94 scheduled visiting aircraft at Hatfield the other week, and with competing aircraft and display aircraft some 180 aircraft, in all—not to mention their pilots—had to be provided for. . Postponement Problems From the foregoing paragraph it will be seen that it is not a question of a snap of the fingers to postpone a meeting from a Saturday to the following day. Apart from religious factors, the accommodation question alone would be formidable, whilst most telephone facilities and insurance arrangements apply for the chosen day only. The generalization may be made that postpone- ment to the next day means doubling the cost of the meeting without by any means doubling the revenue, because many specta- tors, once disappointed, are unwilling to try again. On THE DAY, in the morning, an angry beehive of officials will be buzzing, either in a state of organized disorganization or disorganized organization. Suddenly, as the public address announces the preliminaries to the first event, everything seems to slip into mesh and, in the English fashion, all works well. Only one thing is certain : there will be a party, jubilant or despondent, after the show, and the happy Fellowship of the Air will have notched "another treasured memory. The cups and trophies, insured by the R.Ae.C., will repose far and wide, to be recalled in ten months or so, and a replica pro- vided. And meanwhile, back at headquarters in London, the mole activity for the next series of races has started again, and the circle is complete. Few can possibly understand the splendid work, especially the routine work, carried on by the clerical staff of the Royal Aero Club and no more than a handful of experts can appreciate the work of the Racing Committee, of which Major R. H. Mayo has been chairman for several years. But I may disclose this : that the minutes of the Racing Committee for the England-New Zealand contest to be held in 1953 already exceed 200,000 words, which is equivalent to three novels in length. That is what is going on behind the racing scene.
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