JACKSON, MI here we come! July 9-10, 2011: The Michigan Aerobatic Open 2011. Competition in all power categories: Primary, Sportsman, Intermediate, Advanced and Unlimited. More on that in a subsequent blog. Practice days July 7 and 8.
First progress has been made on a huge to-do list provided by the IAC in preparation for the Jackson competition. If you are an IAC member you can find it here. Heck, I think the link works even if you aren't an IAC/EAA member.
The airport is planning on us being there, and I had a great conversation with Kent Maurer, airport manager. Kent is a retired police officer in something like his 8th year of airport management and loves it. He does pretty much everything from administration to mowing and spent a lot of time on the plows this week. I'm looking forward to meeting him in person soon. Kent had anticipated our contest dates and posted them on the Reynolds Field calendar already. Thank you!
I then spoke with Dave Flynn, airport tower chief. Dave flew in the military (C-130's and such) and has some great stories from those days. The kind of guy that deserves an uninterrupted session over a beer or three, and I really hope to get that opportunity. Dave likes having the acro gang around. He said "they always know where they are coming out of the box" which leads me to believe that the general flying crowd doesn't always know where they are. He mentioned the typical nice top view of an Extra diving out of the box on a right downwind to 24 in a steep bank and descent to the runway and remembers clearing a guy on a 3-mile straight-in for 24 for landing #2 behind an aerobatic something or other that was just coming out of the box. The guy on final questioned his judgement; Dave told him he might get a glimpse of the lead aircraft exiting the runway if he got there in time.
Which brings up a point: aerobatic competitions typically do NOT close down the hosting airport. In fact, we love having people fly in to watch. At Jackson there is a lot of fly-in airport restaurant traffic during the event, just like any other weekend also.
The hosting airport will adjust traffic patterns if necessary and will stay open for business. The box at Jackson sits just north and parallel with 6-24, over the top of the north end of runway 32, which closes for the competition. If runway 24 is in use the non-competition folks fly a regular left hand pattern. The competitors leave a high-post position south of the field well above the pattern and fly around the east end of the airport and enter the box from the northeast on the north side of the runway. After completing a routine, a competitor will leave the box, enter a right downwind for 24 and land with instruction from the tower. If runway 6 is active, the pattern reverses, with non-competitors flying right traffic to 6 to stay south of the field and competitors leaving the box in a left downwind for 6. While above the pattern and in the box the competitors are on frequency with the chief judge. When in the pattern climbing out or leaving the box to land the planes switch back to the tower. The tower can talk with the chief judge at any time. It all works rather smoothly.
The runway sets a "dead line" that competitors dare not cross for penalty of zeroing their routine, and most of the competition flying has a base altitude well above runway traffic, so the competitors simply don't get in the way. The non-competitors taking off and landing may be a little self-conscious having a group of judges sitting under tents next to the runway, but they really don't have time to watch non-competitors much.
Finally, I am obtaining box information from last year and preparing to file the docs required to have the same aerobatic box at this year's competition. I spoke with a very helpful operations inspector at the East Michigan FSDO (Willow Run) today and know what steps to take to complete all that - the form 7711-2 and supporting documents. I'll post some of that stuff here as I get it.
I'm going to see if Nancy will write something for this after she makes contact with the local EAA chapter and starts to work on volunteer staff, starting with recruiting a chief judge.
More soon. We'll be working on sponsorships in February also - that should be interesting!
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