World Aerobatic Competition 2017 - Malelane

Sep 18, 2017
3 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

Over the past week, the small agricultural town of Malelane transformed into the hub of global aerobatics, as top competitors from eleven countries participated in the Twenty-Ninth FAI World Aerobatics Championships.

South Africa was well-represented with six competitors: Nigel Hopkins and Barrie Eeles flew Extra 330 SCs, Patrick Davidson piloted a powerful Sukhoi 31, Bertus du Preez competed in an Sbach XA42, Mark Hensman flew an MX2, and Neville Ferreira participated in the distinctive Slick 540. Neville was the first to compete at this level in a Slick aircraft that was designed and built in South Africa.

The competition lasts for a week and is divided into two categories: Aresti and Freestyle.

Aresti

The Aresti Catalog is the standards document of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) that lists the aerobatic maneuvers allowed in aerobatic competitions. Created by Spanish aviator Colonel José Luis Aresti Aguirre, each figure in the catalog is depicted using lines, arrows, geometric shapes, and numbers to represent the exact form of the maneuvers to be executed.

The catalog categorizes maneuvers into numbered families. Families 1 through 8 include basic figures like turns, loops, and vertical lines. Family 9 includes rotational elements that can be added to basic figures to increase difficulty, alter the flight direction, or invert the aircraft's g-loading.

The Aresti competition consists of four programmes. The first is a Free Known sequence with ten maneuvers, each judged by seven judges and scored between 0 and 10, with 10 being a perfect score. This is followed by three rounds of Free Unknown sequences.

All of this takes place in a "Box" that is 1000 meters long, 1000 meters wide, and 1000 meters high.

Each maneuver is assigned a "K" number that indicates its difficulty level; a higher "K" number corresponds to more points.

Mikhail Mamistov from Russia, flying an Extra 330SC, dominated the Aresti competition, followed by three French pilots also in Extra 330SCs. The top-performing South African was Patrick Davidson, who flew a Sukhoi 31 and achieved a commendable thirteenth position. Nigel Hopkins, the second South African pilot, finished in eighteenth place.

The Freestyle competition is entirely unique, with pilots given 4 minutes to execute a sequence of their own choosing. The judges evaluate them solely based on their performance, as no predetermined sequence is provided. Once again, Rob Holland from the USA excelled in the freestyle category, continuing his dominance from previous years. He achieved a score of 84.22%, nearly 4% ahead of the second-place competitor. This feat is particularly impressive because he was flying Mark Hensman’s MX2, whereas he typically uses an MXS, the single-seat version of the MX2.

Nigel Hopkins came extremely close to securing what could have been South Africa's first medal in Unlimited Aerobatics, finishing in fourth place just 0.02% behind the Spaniard Castor Fantoba, who took third. Olivier Masurel from France claimed the second spot.

Neville Ferreira and Patrick Davidson proudly represented South Africa, securing twelfth and thirteenth places, respectively. Unfortunately, the competition faced challenging conditions due to heavy smoke from nearby fires, which became so dense that the event had to be paused until visibility improved, as pilots lost sight of the horizon. Additionally, the freestyle competition was delayed because of strong winds.

The competition was officially concluded with a spectacular display by Team X-treme, featuring Nigel Hopkins in his Extra 330SC, Jason Beamish and Mark Sampson in Sbach aircraft, and Mark Hensman in his MX2.