Preparing for Your First Aerobatic Competition
A first competition adds a timetable, briefing requirements and ground judging to your flying. Prepare the aircraft documents, programme and equipment in advance, then review the scorecards with your instructor.
- Enter one category below where you think you belong. Sportsman exists so that people can learn how a contest works without simultaneously learning a hard sequence. Flying a modest programme well teaches more than surviving a difficult one.
- Learn the box before you learn the sequence. Positioning is assessed as well as figure quality. Fly the box at your home field until finishing a figure in the right place stops being an accident.
- Fly the known programme until it is boring. It is published in advance for exactly this reason. Aim for consistent practice within your training plan.
- Practise the unknown skill separately. Have somebody hand you a card and fly it cold, with no practice. This is a distinct skill from flying a memorised routine and it is the one that collapses first under contest pressure.
- Get somebody to judge you. A single experienced observer on the ground with the card and a pen will tell you more in ten minutes than a season of self-assessment from the cockpit. You cannot see your own loop.
- Sort the aeroplane out early. Paperwork, insurance, a serviceable parachute in date, and no maintenance items pending. Contest week is the worst possible time to discover an expired document.
- Pack for waiting. Most of a contest is sitting on grass waiting for weather, a briefing or your slot. Water, sun protection, a chair, a notebook. Pilots who are dehydrated and sunburned by day three fly worse and are not fun to be around.
- Read your scorecards the same evening. Judges write comments. Those comments are the single most valuable thing you take home, and they stop making sense a week later.
What to expect from the scores
Lower than you hoped, and in a pattern. Figures you thought were clean will be marked down for heading, and the errors will repeat across the sequence, because they come from one underlying habit rather than from fifteen separate mistakes. Finding that habit is what the weekend bought you.
The social part
Aerobatic contests are small and welcoming to a degree that surprises people arriving from other sports. Ask anybody on the flight line to look at your sequence and they will. Most of the best coaching happens on the grass between flights and costs nothing.
Before any of this
You need the aerobatic rating and currency on the type you intend to compete in. If either is missing, that is the first job rather than the contest entry.
Frequently asked questions
Which category should I enter for my first aerobatic competition?
Sportsman, or one category below where you think you belong. Flying a modest programme well teaches more than surviving a difficult one while also learning how a contest runs.
What loses the most points at a first competition?
Positioning rather than figure quality. Practise flying inside the box at your home field until finishing a figure in the right place stops being accidental.
How do I practise for the unknown programme?
Have somebody hand you a card and fly it cold with no practice. It is a distinct skill from flying a memorised routine and it is the first thing to collapse under contest pressure.
What should I take to a competition?
Water, sun protection, a chair and a notebook. Most of a contest is spent waiting for weather or for your slot, and pilots who are dehydrated by day three fly worse.
Do I need an aerobatic rating to compete?
Yes, along with currency on the type you intend to fly.
Fly it yourself
Aerobatic flights in the Extra 300L SP-EKS from Radom-Piastów (EPRP), 100 km from Warsaw. From 2,222 PLN, no licence or experience required. Gift vouchers are issued as a PDF after payment confirmation and stay valid for 12 months.