Jack Sheeks, Hal DeBolt, and a boringly long list of other designers designed sport models with the "wing on the bottom". Not one of them is what anyone that has ever seriously competed in pattern would consider a true pattern model. More like "Best of Show" or "Best Finish" type models at public displays where someone's wing on the bottom alleged "pattern model" wins awards for finishes and innovations. Kind of like the display cars at auto shows, where none of them are ever expected to actually be driven. I am not saying that they weren't works of art. Nor am I saying that they were not representative of a lot of designer skill - but they just weren't patternships.

Patternships represent the state-of-the-art of a given time period. They are not defined by the sales hype that someone's marketing department has spun to get sport pilots all excited over the prospect of flying a prestigious patternship. This isn't that hard to decypher folks. Lots of the sport kits that were marketed as being patternships compared more to a .22 than 306 military rifle. Two completely different worlds. But, that's just my opinion.


Ed Cregger