HARELINES

LONDON TO SYDNEY AND EVER ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

(or round-and-round, there and back, etc.)

by David Hare

The Race

Contrary to earlier projection, the Race is not going to Agra, because, unknown(!) to the Organisers,

1. Agra airport can't handle this number of aircraft, nor refuel them

2. The Taj Mahal is not open to tourists on Fridays, (which today is, though it's very easy to lose count of the days in this sort of exercise when it's actually going on, as opposed to before it starts), so the reason for the visit has gone.

Many of the contestants clearly feel they've been let down over this, since they were of course led to believe the Race would give them a chance to see as tourists things they wouldn't otherwise see. I'm not unhappy about it personally, because I've been lucky enough to do the tourist thing before, & a day off is useful for catching up with some sleep, but my Captain would have liked to have seen it. However, with some help from very generous friends in the industry he very cleverly got our sponsored fuel redirected to Calcutta, thus ensuring we should leave India fully fuelled.

The Fat Controller was most apologetic about missing Agra at the briefing last night, and explained how hard it was for the Organisers to have planned for these contingencies in advance!

On the plus side, my personal impression so far is that the Organisation has now put some work into making sure Air Traffic know what we are about, and the A.T.C. both in Pakistan and here in India has been very professional and helpful. One has to accept that these are countries unfortunately on a war footing, so there will necessarily be regulations and formalities which may seem irksome to those of us not directly involved. I thought we got through the formalities of entry with relatively little fuss, so I hope I don't have to eat my words when we leave here tomorrow, or the country from Calcutta the next day! We did, of course, have to wait an hour for the Organisers 'bus, including sitting on it, overheating (the bus, that is, though we weren't far behind) and twiddling our thumbs for some time.

I mustn't turn this into a catalogue of moans, so I will add I believe there are indeed some entrants who accept that the event is enjoyable (which it is, despite all the problems) and adequately planned and executed. Certain it is that one can enjoy overflying the country, even though the schedule, in our case and given the start order the Organisation insists on, doesn't give time to see any of it whilst remaining responsible enough to be able to fly safely without being under pressure through sleep deprivation. The details of this will be boring to my readers, if any, but maybe I'll revert to it in a later communiqué. Meanwhile, as positioning flights go, we're so far on course for Sydney!

The World Tour

Nothing new on this at present. A number of Brits I've spoken to are themselves clearly interested in returning after the Race by a Round-the-World route, but there is so far as I have discovered only one entrant who is really serious and planning for it. This is Tim Ellison, a disabled pilot, formerly a Harrier driver, who has really broken new ground in his setting of an example of what can be done with his level of determination, and working for the benefit of disabled pilots generally, as well as securing recognition from the various Authorities of the ability of disabled people to compete with the rest of us on a level playing field. He was among the winners of the speed section of the day's leg the other day, in fact. (Of course, he was flying a Bonanza, with the benefit of a reference speed, allocated by the Organisers, which his aircraft is capable of achieving in level flight, which helps!)

Fuel at Delhi

Tim Ellison