Great to see this thread going again.

3D is at the far end of the spectrum of flight. Its always breaking new ground and gaining popularity. The skill level of the pilots doing it low and slow have better control over that plane then most of the people flying helis. I fly helis too, so I can say that. :-)

Sean Tucker was absolutely amazed at what R/C airplanes can accomplish. It just our power to weight ratio. It was fun telling Sean how to do things.

3D is not only hovering, its all the things that can be done at little to no forward speed. Down here in South Texas, we fly in wind and fly the planes backwards, knife edge hovering, suicide slides, backward flips, backwards landings in addition to rolling harriers and many of the more popular 3D tricks.

Most days when I fly, I just want to find what I can make the plane do, then figure out how to do it again.

Everyone has their thing. For some its the pure thrill of taking off and landing and not breaking a prop. For others its the excitement of taking a box of stick and turning it into a flying machine. And for some of us nut-cases, its bouncing the tail on the ground or seeing if we can only remove the monokote off the top of the rudder on a inverted pass.

We are all bound in this hobby by the love of airplanes and flying them. We should all be respectful of what others do. What I like to do, may not be what you like to do, but it doesn't change the fact we all love airplanes.

Will 3D become more popular. YES! Just look at the new rules for IMAC freestyle and the XFC. Now with Artistic being recognized, it may open up more comps for those who don't have 8 grand to put into a big IMAC plane.

For those of you who don't like it. Get over it. Not many people liked Elvis, television, computers or the Internet when it was new. Now its part of Eveready life.

3D, the Slim Shady of radio control.

On a more somber note. I have had to retire the Madness. After almost 2 years of flying and several hundreds of flights, not a single crash, the airframe just can't take it anymore. Not to say it didn't suffer its fair share of damage, a few midairs, every control surface ripped off, back half of the fuse breaking off doing a tail sweep and the physical abuse it has been though pulling all those G's, it was time to hang it up.

The servos will stay in it as it now hangs next to the retired Hovering Cobra.

A replacement for the Madness is on the way, a Flip 3D. Also designed by CPLR, I am expecting great things from this plane. I'm currently putting the tweeks on a UCD. I will post some tail touching pics of it, soon as someone shows with a camera.