July 24 Today s news and photos provided by Jim Quinn. Additional photos by Jay Smith. Mickey Losardo: Other Half # 4. RC Aerobatics The Other Half Yesterday I asked you to guess the Better Half based on information provided by the significant others of some of our Nats pilots. How do you think you did? Read on for the correct answers. 1. I m George Asteris and if you guessed I was Sue s pilot you were correct. She is 110% for me. There is now way, now way in the world, that I could even find someone to come close to her. She is irreplaceable; she is a dream; she doesn t have a selfish bone in her body. She is all for me. 2. I m Troy Newman and if you guessed I was Jenny s pilot you were correct. She is the most supportive wife in Pattern. She enjoys going to events and has as much passion for it as I do. 3. I m Brian Young and if you guessed I was Susan s pilot you were correct. She is a hard-working person. I really enjoy having her here with me at the contest this week. 4. I m Mickey Losardo and if you guessed I was Monique s pilot you were correct. She is loving, kind, and very considerate. She is a great cook. She cooks for all my friends and so she has to be a smart shopper. Academy of Model Aeronautics International Aeromodeling Center, Muncie IN Web site: www.modelaircraft.org; E-mail: nats@modelaircraft.org; Copyright Academy of Model Aeronautics 2008 Edited by: Ashley Rauen
5. I m Raiko Potter and if you guessed I was Bonnie s pilot you were correct. She never knew this existed on a higher level and she is an awesome girlfriend. Bryan Kennedy # 6. Quique Somenzini # 8. 6. I m Bryan Kennedy and if you guessed I was Cathy s pilot you were correct. My soul mate, my support, she completes me. 7. I m Matt Liprie and if you guessed I was Deonna s pilot you were correct. She works really hard. 8. I m Quique and if you guessed I was Sandra s pilot you were correct. She is the best mother in the world and the most true person I ve ever met. 9. I m John Pavlich and if you guessed I was Barbara s pilot you were correct. She is the perfect call girl. Matt Liprie # 7. Troy Newman # 2. 10. I m Gary Courtney and if you guessed I was Sharon s pilot you were correct. She is an angel. John Pavlich # 9. Jim Rogers # 11. George Asteris # 1. 11. I m Jim Rogers and if you guessed I was Liz s pilot you were correct. She has been very supportive of my modeling hobby and she has had a good time learning the maneuvers and calling for me this year. Mike Hester # 12. Raiko Potter # 5. 12. I m Mike Hester and if you guessed I was Melissa s pilot you were correct. I can try the rest of my life and I ll never be able to tell her how much she means to me, but I m still going to try. Meeting her is the best thing that ever happened to me. Brian Young # 3. Tim Tipton # 13. 13. I m Tim Tipton and if you guessed I was Ronda s pilot you were correct. She is my heart s desire in spades. 14. I m Mike Greear and if you guessed I was Jean s pilot you were correct. I couldn t do this hobby without her; she completes me to make this hobby happen. Gary Courtney # 10. 2 Mike Greear # 14.
Meet the Pilots Who could resist this smile? Dad can I have your Brio? Jermey Chinn and his own designed Kudzu. The Szczur family name is not new to modeling or to AMA Nationals competition. Joseph Szczur is the newest member of this famous family to make it to the Nats. How about having your dad give you his Brio for you to fly, equipment and all? Don, Joseph s dad, flew this airplane into the finals of the 2007 Nats/Team Selection and now Joseph is burning up the skies on Site 4 every afternoon. Joseph has been in just three other sanctioned contests in his whole life flying Sportsman. He told me that he was landing so smoothly that his dad thought he should compete in Intermediate at the 2008 Nats. Actually Joseph made a commitment to Jason, Quique, Andres, Chip, Danny and several other top FAI pilots at the 2007 Nats that he would be back for 2008 and compete himself. Joseph says he likes how smooth the JR radios feel and how responsive they are. He is currently scoring a lot of 8s and 9s and if there were not such strong crosswinds on Wednesday, he would have certainly scored a few 10s. I m sure you ve seen Joseph s smiling face and sparkling personality on the flightline. Joseph is strongly in the top half of the pack in Intermediate and Oh! By the way, did I tell you Joseph is eight years old? Congratulations Joseph and continue to make all of us smile and be proud to know you. Jeremy Chinn is also a first-time competitor at the 2008 Nats. Jeremy is normally an indoor pilot flying a lot of 3-D and F3P. He has been an E-TOC pilot for the last few years. He finally decided to see what it was like to fly in some wind and so he took his game outside. You couldn t miss his airplane, the Kudzu. It is the only profile airplane flying here this year, and I dare say any year. Jeremy is a very intelligent and skilled designer. He was designing airplanes in his high-school drafting classes and although he is not a professional airframe designer, he has designed more than 100 designs and flown most of the airplanes he designed. He said some of his high-school-era designs have grades on them because they were part of his class work. He also said they were mostly A+ grades. Kudzu is a Japanese word for a creeping vine and you find this vine every where in his home town area of Memphis, Tennessee. His Kudzu is all-balsa-covered foam with a 63012 airfoil that he says is a very common airfoil for two-meter aerobatic airplanes. Flying in the 2008 Nats has fulfilled a 23-year dream and his experience here has far exceeded his expectations. He thinks NSRCA and AMA are great. We think he is great as well and are happy to see him join us for this and for many more Nats to come. Mon.-Thurs. Friday Saturday Sunday 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Surface Condition Weather Forecasting for Air Sports Aviators - general Muncie area - from www.usairnet.com. 3
Meet the Pilots cont. George Miller and his Black Magic back at the Nats for the first time in more than 30 years. George Miller is no stranger to the Nats and Precision Aerobatics. He just hasn t been around for the last 30+ years. In the 1970s George was flying Dirty Birdies and Phoenix 7s. He started flying in 1971 with a Falcon 56. With school and family George was out of the sport until his return in the 1990s. It wasn t until 2002, however, that George got back into the airplane part of our hobby. Along with his Focus and Pinnacle, George really likes to fly his Black Magic VF3, which he built over the past winter. George s comment about the Nats after more than 30 years: It s a blast. This is a very nice community of people here. Mike Mueller a past NSRCA President, back at the Nats for the first time in more than 30 years. Mike Mueller is also back at the Nats for the first time in more than 30 years. Mike flew a Dirty Birdie in the 1976 Nats where he finished fourth in Expert. Mike had to get out of the hobby for several years while he tended to raising his family. He is now back flying an Integral with an electric motor no less. Mike is from NSRCA D-5 and really enjoys this group of pilots. Mike has the distinction of being the youngest president of the NSRCA at the age of 24. Mike, like many other top pilots who came through the era of reeds, likes Mode 1 on his transmitter. Mike s first Nats was 40 years ago in 1968 when he was flying a Zeus Taurus. Mike we re all really happy to have you back and keep those comments coming on the NSRCA list. Preliminary scores for Site 3 after Round 2 1 Quique Somenzini 1000.00 2 Sean Mc Murtry 1946.97 3 Chip Hyde 1909.31 4 Troy Newman 1864.88 5 Don Szczur 1861.39 6 Chad Northeast 1853.80 7 Todd Blose 1827.33 8 Albert Glen 1824.41 9 Daniel Landis 1798.05 10 David Snow 1767.51 11 Raiko Potter 1663.76 12 Mark Atwood 1661.31 13 Arthur Morton 1638.08 14 David Reaville 1621.96 15 Mark Byrne 1609.73 Site 1 1 Jason Shulman 1988.55 2 Andrew Jesky 1966.27 3 David Lockhart 1951.73 4 Bill Cunningham 1877.13 5 Brett Wickizer 1865.53 6 Bryan Hebert 1846.95 7 Pete Hebert 1815.21 8 Dezso Vaghy 1788.82 9 Ryan Mc Laughlin 1759.70 10 Earl Haury 1753.22 11 Andre Bouchard 1742.24 12 Ronald Barr 1660.35 13 Jim Kambro 1645.15 14 Nedim Bek 1640.08 15 Harry Ellis 1545.46 16 Michael Harrison 1483.97 17 Michael Dorna 1447.24 Advanced After 4 Rounds 1 Brandon Landry 2997.5560 2 Marcio Jorge 2990.7258 3 Paul Lachance 2906.8734 4 Eugene Villa 2856.0865 5 Roddy Ory 2842.2427 6 Jon Lowe 2806.5626 7 Matthew Liprie 2795.2173 8 Gary Courtney 2761.6381 9 Richard Lewis 2703.4731 10 Bryan Kennedy 2695.9079 11 John Konneker 2676.5621 12 Jim Sheffield 2648.8955 13 Steve Ford 2629.6065 14 Luis Rodriquez 2596.4586 15 John Pavlick 2595.4756 16 Charles Barrera 2576.6316 17 Jarvis Johnson 2517.7115 4
Masters after round 4 best 3 out of 4 FAI Standings after round 4 best 3 out of 4 Intermediate Standings after 4 rounds 1 Ken Valez 2990.23 2 Gerald Budd 2981.90 3 Glen Watson 2981.59 4 George Asteris 2955.64 5 Joe Walker 2952.54 6 Mark Hunt 2941.74 7 Stephen Byrd 2917.63 8 Krishlan Fitsimmons 2895.88 9 Rusty Fried 2873.99 10 Humberto Pomales 2872.97 11 Mike Mueller 2868.31 12 Matthew Kimbro 2866.92 13 Robert Satalino 2863.13 14 Steve Miller 2859.86 15 Brian Young 2846.02 16 Vern Koester 2840.54 17 Joe Dunnaway 2819.25 18 Jonathon Carter 2808.94 19 Christopher Moon 2802.17 20 Ed Alt 2787.27 21 Don Ramsey 2770.00 22 Joe Lachowski 2748.24 23 Keith Black 2720.97 24 Mike Hester 2720.19 25 Chris White 2696.05 26 Mikey Losardo 2688.49 27 John Fuqua 2676.53 28 Dale Arnold 2636.20 29 Todd Schmidt 2634.61 30 Jim Thompson 2634.53 31 Anthony Romano 2627.35 32 Vince Bortone 21618.99 33 Scott Smith 2607.46 34 Thomas Gilkey 2598.03 35 Ron Lockhart 2592.79 36 Robert Kane 2568.99 37 Lawrence Auer 2561.17 38 James Hubbard 2556.89 39 Brenner Sharp 2501.58 40 David Johnston 2501.46 41 David Stodart 3432.16 42 Richard Wallace 2360.53 43 Ruohan (Jack) Li 2237.88 44 Lynn Burks 2215.25 45 Ron VanPutte 1004.32 1 Quique Somenzini 3000.00 2 Jason Shulman 2989.47 3 Andrew Jesky 2966.43 4 Chip Hyde 2948.43 5 Sean McMurty 2942.41 6 David Lockhart 2917.82 7 Bill Cunningham 2893.93 8 Brett Wickizer 2876.98 9 Pete Collinson 2855.54 10 Chad Northeast 2847.07 11 Troy Newman 2841.34 12 Todd Blose 2804.96 13 Andre Bouchard 2803.19 14 Don Szczur 2781.95 15 Albert AC Glen 2773.61 16 Daniel Landis 2727.42 17 David Snow 2724.98 18 Ryan McLaughlin 2692.23 19 Dezso Vaghy 2681.56 20 Bryan Hebert 2670.15 21 Earl Haury 2667.04 22 Michael Harrison 2643.39 23 Mark Atwood 2574.84 24 Ronald Barr 2559.46 25 Raiko Potter 2553.33 26 Mark Byrne 2507.93 27 David Reaville 2479.43 28 Athur Morton 2466.46 29 Jim Kimbro 2460.20 30 Nedim Bek 2410.74 31 Michael Dorna 2406.78 32 Harry Ells 2402.31 Did you guess the Site Director from yesterday s NatsNews was Jerry Pryler from site 3? If you did you should be getting a prize. 1 Blake Hilson 3000.00 2 Chris Odom 8906.0122 3 George Miller 2752.6424 4 Tim Tipton 2681.9821 5 Larry Kauffman 2642.4506 6 Gerald Price 2630.4737 7 Mike Greear 2604.8769 8 Joseph Szczur 2595.0056 9 Bob Condra 2570.6363 10 Austin Wingo 2565.9577 11 Jeremy Chinn 2556.4157 12 Mark Carey 2518.5806 13 Royce Dorsett 2480.0267 14 James Rogers 2476.4856 15 Joel Garza 2076.6452 16 Charles Simmons 2068.4865 I wonder what this brain trust of FAI pilots is discussing on Site 1? Break something? Fix it fast. Visit Peak Electronics, Inc. located at Site 3. Supporting your needs during the Nats. Sirius Chargers and accessories Custom Electronics Accessories Xtreme Link 2.4 GHz Castle Creations speed controls Velcro Hobby Lobby FlyCamOne 2 5
Joseph Szczur lighting up the Muncie sky with his Brio. Thanks to Dale Arnold s nose art we will not soon forget one of our favorite friends and super pilots and World Team member, Kirk Gray. No RC Aerobatic Nats is complete without a banquet. This year was no exception. This is a small portion of those who attended and an even smaller view of the food. Andrew Jesky. 6