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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1417.PDF
FLIGHT International, 15 August 1963 235 Nice Day for the Races BY KENNETH OWEN Below, presentation of awards to King's Cup winner P. G. Bannister by Coventry's Lord Mayor, Alderman Mrs £. A. Allen. John George in the Bolkow Junior rounds the Baginton pylon Above, THE printed programme said: "6 p.m. (approx): Presentation of the King's Cup and other National Air Race Trophies by the Right Worshipful the Lord Mayor of Coventry, Alderman Mrs E. A. Allen JP." At 8 p.m. Philip Mayne flagged a fragile-looking Tipsy Nipper away to begin the King's Cup race. Eighteen minutes later Ron Paine in the Hawk Speed Six was the last man away, with four 18-mile laps to go. How approx can you get? The weather, of course, was to blame. Not only was this the annual National Air Race meeting at Coventry, it was also the August Bank Holiday weekend. This year, that was an unfortu nate combination. The weekend began reasonably enough with pilots and aircraft checking in at Baginton during Friday, August 2. Assistant Clerk of the Course Ken Tice was on hand to examine licences and to receive engine log books and sundry pieces of paper, in return for which he dispensed competitors' armbands, programmes, photo copied maps of the area and airfield badges. As a passenger in one of the racing aircraft I naturally had to sign that if I was killed during the races I would not hold it against anyone. We even had time for a few practice circuits around the course. I was flying with Peter Dawson, managing director of Flying Faci lities Ltd of Bristol, the Cessna dealers, in a bright new Skyhawk, Rolls-Royce-powered and sixth off the assembly line at Reims. We checked the course on the briefing-room map. I thought the circuit was rather long, then realized that the dotted rectangle which I was studying was in fact the outline of the Birmingham Control Zone. The actual course covered some 18 miles with turning points at Hunningham, Church Lawford Airfield, Brandon and Baginton. At first the pylons were difficult to spot from the air, but we were soon able to settle down, timing our laps with a stopwatch and noting the landmarks on which to line up immediately on coming out of the turns. Straight over the corner of a wood, and towards a white house on the first leg; pass to the right of village, over cross roads, cornfield and white barns on the second; straight over the red barn on the third; and over a prominent poplar tree, keeping i'Jdge in Airedale G-ASAI overtakes David Phillips' Tiger Moth on the final run in to compete the John Morgan race
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