I've always been a 61 two stroke guy, even flew turnaround with 60 size Cursor's and Boxers an eclipse and others. But I have to admit that the help I received with my 91 four stroke on the WM Intruder showed what I had been missing. I do understand the SPA way of thinking. I have the Magnum 91fs and running 20% CP Heli it is a real powerhouse. Easy to tune and dead bone reliable. When into 61's I had Webras then FSRs and finally OS Hanno's with the Hatori or Carbon fiber pipes. These were also very relaible and easy to tune AFTER the initial setup. The problem is strictly the cost of that setup vs the Magnum or OS 91fs. Uses the out of the box muffler and makes huge maneuvers easy at relativly low speeds. I do believe in retracts as a matter of personal preference and will build all my new aircraft for them (left down for contest work). I still have 6 Webra 61 BH's and 5 OS Hanno's in the shop all in running shape. I think that the classic era should include the SPA Antique era, the SPA era and the BPA era aircraft. The biggest change to the pattern events was the change to the turnaround format and that seems to be the end of the classic era.

The modern SPA format is very encouraging to the novice pilot who wants to do pattern without "spending the motherlode" for an even modestly competitive AMA type ship. We ghad our workshop up here in Connecticut and had 2 Kaos (1 with a 61 two stroke and 1 with a 70 four stroke), two Skylark 56's, a Senior Falcon and my WM Intruder plus an interested newcomer with a 25 size low wing sport plane. Any of these aircraft could have been the winning aircraft. This is the beauty of the SPA format as a wide variety of planes are very capable. The choices get a little slimmer (still numerous though) in the BPA setup.

A joint contest such as the Florida one would be really neat to watch. I would suspect we will see more of these where noise regulations permit.

Peace

Mark O