Birdman

The occasion for our visit to Bognor was the 38th International Birdman, a competition held each year on the end of the pier and intended to promote the little-known sport of free-flying - that is to say, flying off the end of piers without the benefit of an engine. We attended on the second of the two days. Sitting a little to the east of the pier, we had a fine view of the proceedings, with visibility helped along with a Celestron monocular. A small flock of seagulls was in attendance on the water, as were sundry rescue boats.

We focused on the dressing up class - the other two classes were for more serious attempts at flying off the end of the pier - with the prize perhaps going to a lady from Kentish Town, something to do with the teaching of mathematics and who has charitable interests in Africa in same, who was dressed up in a large confection made of small orange balloons, along the lines of Leonardo's design for a helicopter.

The first warm-up act was a display by a team of drum-majorette style dancers, young ladies of various sizes, shapes and ages. Some of them were young enough for smiling and dancing at the same time not to be possible and some of them may have had a travelling background - but in any event they did rather well.

The second warm-up act was a display by an eight strong team of Tiger Moth biplanes, mostly flown by past and present pilots for the RAF, for BA or both - including one past captain of a Concorde. A display which not only provided a good dose of nostalgia, both for ancient flying machines and for the Battle of Britain, but was much improved by the Tiger Moths being both slow and quiet; you actually got to see them without being deafened.

Various other goings on around the margins, including the rather splendid inflatable dog, illustrated.

PS: there was also a small helicopter, the sort of thing you can buy from Maplins, hovering over the proceedings, presumably taking pictures. I was impressed with how it could keep station in the fresh westerly breeze. Perhaps that is all down to some cunning on-board computer coupled to a motion detection accelerometer.

Reference 1: http://www.birdman.org.uk/cgi-bin/page?Welcome.