Despite some less-than-ideal weather, the Central Canada Aerobatic Championships took place this past weekend in Steinbach.

Luke Penner of Harv's Air Inverted was both an organizer and a competitor. He notes the last aerobatic competition to take place in Manitoba was back in the 80's so it was cool to finally bring an event like this to his hometown.

Unfortunately, Penner says the weather was not particularly cooperative.

"Like anything in Aviation, it is always weather-dependent. It is crazy, this whole summer we have had nothing but 30-degree temperatures and clear skies and then literally the weekend of the event we got a huge downpour."

Friday was supposed to be a practice day and Saturday was supposed to be the first day of competition, however, neither could go ahead as planned. Penner says all the action ended up falling on Sunday.

"Thankfully, things cleared up for us Sunday morning and we were able to get about 6 hours of good weather and we actually managed to finish all of the flying. We had a fairly small event for a competition, we had eight pilots which turns into 24 flights as we each fly three times."

Though Sunday morning is not as ideal as Saturday, Penner says they were still able to garner a small audience at the Steinbach North Airport clubhouse.

He adds they have big plans for the future of the Central Canada Aerobatic Championship.

"This is only the beginning. This event was actually supposed to be bigger with people coming more from Alberta or even Ontario and the US, but weather and other things prevented that from happening so this is only the beginning. It is going to be even bigger and better in the future."

Penner says the World Championships in Aerobatics is being held in Las Vegas in 2023 and they hope to incorporate the team Canada selection process into next year's Central Canada Aerobatic Championship in Steinbach.

This year's results are as follows:

  • Primary category:
    • 1st - Atamvir Multani
    • 2nd - Ben MacNeil
  • Sportsman category:
    • 1st Alex - Praveen
    • 2nd Mike - Toews
    • 3rd. Joland - Schmidt
  • Advanced category:
    • 1st-  Neil Harris
    • 2nd - Luke Penner
    • 3rd - Jesse Mack