ORIGINAL: BHolsten
That's Awesome Don! Congradulations to you and Joseph on the Team nominations.
We should get together some time for a weekend and fly together, will help me knock off the cob webs after not flying for a year and a half.
Anyway,..wanted to say Congradulations and it's long over due.
Joseph, Great job and I look forward to flying with all of you again soon!
Regards,
bholsten
Absolutely Ditto on the congrats it was a pleasure to watch and I know how proud you must be. The difficulty and competition is much much greater now then it was 30 years ago IMO. I think we had an avalanche in the 84 pattern and then a bunch of quarter loops and half rolls. I am not saying it wasn't hard but there have been so many elements added since then and he has a handle on all of them. Once again GREAT JOB JOSEPH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for the Team it was a pleasure to watch each one of you fly as always. However on thurs. this year something was different. Up until the finals day it was anybodys contest to win or lose. However on thurs. everyone was fighting for second. AJ was in a league of his own and flew like a machine. He had his new plane that he designed and then had the molds made in Arg. (It was a google translate year but between Falco's Marino, Sergio, and of course Andrew) they got it done and done right the first time. I am not sure its as simple as an early post made it sound as I took just one look at it and saw immediately several things Andrew incorporated in the design from the beginning and one shortley after. Flared Rudder TE, Snow Wings, SFG's, Fuse size, and super lite weight IMO he has everything needed to do what he did.
Of course there are many options to chose from but this year I went with the contra. I am convinced its as good or better then anything for our P 13 Sequence and IMO all the AMA classes. Those patterns are not to power hungry in any conditions and have a ton of straight lines with rolls in them. As for F and the Unknowns just about anything will get through them in average conditions however we did not have average conditions this year. We were also not able to pick the patterns as a group so it was a true test of of everything. Personally I was just happy to do all the manuevers lol. Andrew blazed through pretty good with his Q80 on TP 5400's, as did the others however I really believe Brett had an advantage. Simply because the YS doesn't care what manuever is what, or where, as long as is has fuel in the tank.
It will be interesting to see how the European Champs go and if some others share the same opinouns.
Once again Arch, Congrats on the win as well as running a great nats. It was a pleasure to see all of you guys again and hope it happens for many years to come.
C