I think I've gotten over it...maybe...not sure. It's a new feeling for me. 1985 in Westover, Mass. was my first Nats, Sportsman class, when there were 80+ in that class alone. How times have changed...or have they? I remember watching Chip, Ivan, Ron and the rest of the top F3A flyers fly. I still watch Chip fly, although for different reasons now, as well as the rest of the top F3A flyers. I guess now I am now being watched like I was doing back in 1985.

Back in June I already knew that Quique and I were going to be on the same flight line (same frequency) so that made the Nats even more exciting for me. Here I am going against #2 in the World everyday of the Nats. What more could I ask for. Although maybe it would have been harder against Chip, or Sean or Don....but I will never know. All I knew was that a 2-time US National Champion/Worlds runner-up and I were on the same line. Only thing I had left to do was finish up my new Impact and focus on the task at hand...the NATS/Team Trials.

We left on Wed. July 14th, Dave Stodart from Orlando and myself from Phoenix. We met in Indy at 2pm and got a van and headed to Muncie. The drive up was uneventful, just some discussion about what we're going to try and accomplish while we're here, what movies we're going to see and how much practice I'm going to put in. When we arrive at the hotel, I get my package (batteries, charger and spare parts) and we unpack the crates and head to the site. Pylon and IMAC are going on, although it was just practice for both events. At the IMAC site we run into a bunch of friends and socialized around there for a few hours, took a flight on a friends plane and headed back to the hotel to get the planes ready for practice on Thursday.

I put the back-up together, the Revolution Pro, and we headed out to the site the next morning. We stopped back at IMAC to see how things were going while we waited to hear from Chip about practice (he had to get Mike Caglia from the airport). I "called" a round for the now 2-time IMAC National Champion Mark Leseberg Jr. (I think he won them...lol) and then headed out to the practice field. We met up with a local pilot mowing the field and he told us we could fly while he was mowing. We got in a flight of P-05 before Chip and Mike showed up and helped them unload and get their stuff together. I flew another 3 flights and then headed back to the hotel so I could put the Impact together.

Friday morning came and 9am we were at the field again, ready for some practice. By 1pm we had 4 flights and I called it a day (good practice session). Chip, Mike and Kenny Lauter had come out so we hung out for a bit before heading back to the site. We went to Pylon to visit other friends this time. We saw Fred Burgdorf (APC Props) do some racing (and winning a couple of rounds), met up with Wendell Hammond (PowerMaster) among racing friends I hadn't seen in a while.

Some more practice on Saturday. We arrived about noon with Sean and Mike McMurtry. After a couple of hours practicing, Dave and I headed back to the hotel and took a nap before dinner. Nothing special today, just a casual practice day.

Sunday was judgment day....LOL. Dave and I went to the Judges Training Seminar and went through the class with Sean, Mike, Kenny amongst others. Matt Kebabjian did a great job with the class and handled the questions very well, even when I was asking questions that didn't really have answers (although did get some thinking). Afterwards we went to go practice but I only flew 1 flight. Chip, Mike, Kenny and Sean were out there practicing and I figured that if I didn't know what I was doing by then, I wasn't going to learn it today. Dave and I left the field and headed to the hotel to clean up. Both Pylon and IMAC were done, but on the way there I called Mark and asked how he did...he won. Cool. He beat the likes of George Hicks (leader after the first day), Mike McConville and Peter Goldsmith (TOC/Masters Pilots) and Kurt Koelling and Baron Johnson (more up-n-comers in IMAC). After cleaning up we went to the farmhouse and saw Dave Guerin, Eric Henderson and Joe Lachowski. We chatted a bit, got in a pic and even weighed my Impact...but it was 11lbs, 0.5oz. Great, I knew those stickers were too heavy...<G>. Off to the pilots meeting. Chip and Dave did a great job with it and was finished before any rain. There were a couple of questions about electrics/batteries/volts that I need to answer to rest the minds of management, but it wasn't a problem and everyone was happy. Dinner and bed....the contest starts tomorrow.

more later.

Jason
www.jasonshulman.com

Jason,

Please tell us more! I would like to hear about how well you were flying, how well others were flying, what made the difference, what problems you and others may have had, how the unknowns went, etc.

I saw you fly at Phoenix this year, and I was very impressed with your flying skills. I'll never forget your first flight of the contest with your Rev Pro that only had one or two trim flights on it. Everybody fell quiet, and watched your entire round, and it was about as good as it gets. Congratulations on winning the Nats.

Hey, the Impact looks very nice BTW. I really like all of the features of that plane.

David