Flying the 'Dawn to Dusk'

Georgina Hunter-Jones

How two pilots, one in his late seventies, took on the challenge of the 1960s Tiger Club competition.

The Dawn to Dusk competition was started by the Tiger Club in 1963. The objective being: 'To encourage the most interesting employment of a Flying Machine within the limits of competent airmanship and to demonstrate the capabilities of pilot and machine in a day's flying, during the hours between Dawn to Dusk, in terms of furthering some original and praiseworthy objective.'

The President of the panel of judges is HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, who (as he states in the competition rules) has seen every logbook sent in to the judges since the competition was started.

The rules state that the day's flying must include at least eight hours airborne, and the competition is judged on the basis of the log of the flight (including descriptions, photographs etc) which must be written up and submitted within 3 weeks of the date of the flight. Hours of flying are between 4.30 am and 21.30 local, and flights must be done between 15th April and 11th August in the northern hemisphere or between 1st February and 30th April in the southern hemisphere. There is also a half competition, given by David Hamilton, in which the competitors must fly more than four hours...