FROME’s Daniel Weston has just become a British champion in aerobatic gliding, and now has his sights set on becoming world champion.
The final event in the aerobatic gliding calendar for this year saw 19-year old Daniel Weston travel to Saltby near Melton Mowbray over the recent bank holiday weekend, to compete in the sports class in the national championships.
With the weather forecast looking unpredictable, Daniel hoped to get same practice flights in. Later that day the organisers announced that they would squeeze up the competition because of Sunday’s weather forecast, which put the competition on a tight schedule.
On the Saturday, flight number one went well, with Daniel receiving a score of 78.5% which put him in the lead. Then he had to watch his closest competitors go through their second programme.
So came Daniel’s second flight and he knew he needed the same level of score to be in with a chance. But being towed in to a very black cloud, it didn’t look promising.
Daniel said, “After radioing the judges to make sure they were watching, because of the looming rain, I decided to go right away. I started the sequence and the heavens opened. Doing that in pouring rain (which is not normal) was an experience, but it all came together.”
He was then scored 77%, which gave him the gold medal. But, on landing right on the launch point, he couldn’t celebrate as the rain was pouring down and he had to sit in the cockpit until it had stopped.
Paul Conran, manager of the British gliding team said, “Daniel should be very proud to be a national champion at 19 and at first time of asking”.
Talking to Daniel afterwards, he said, “I went to the nationals, not expecting to come away being the British Aerobatic Sports Class Champion”.
Daniel has been a member of the Bath, Wilts, North Dorset Gilding club for three years and he is the second national champion from that club. Daniel has been funding his flying with scholarships and working at Sainsbury’s.
The next steps for Daniel will be to gain a place within the British team and aim for the world championships in 2019.
So for next season, going to competitions and trying to cement a place with the British team will be his main aim. Although entering the quiet time of the year for competing, there will still be a lot of training when the weather allows.
With this in mind he would like to find sponsors to help with the progress towards the world championships. If anybody would be interested in getting involved, Daniel would like to hear from you via danielweston179@gmail.com.
