Goodbye's and Hello's - The AMA Nats are up next!

Well folks the 2011 World Championships are now officially complete. We saw several different judges, pilots and groups start their journey home this morning. For some it's a couple hour drive, for others it's a two day marathon (Australia & South Africa!).  We wish them all a safe journey to wherever home is.

Our stay in Muncie continues as both Chad, Nedim, Mark, Hartley and myself along with fellow Canadian Paul Hepworth compete in the AMA National Championships this week. I was going to start a new blog and then thought I might as well continue right here. It's only a couple extra days of blogging and thus a one stop for those on the net:-)

So... you guessed it... up early and off to the practice site as Hartley picked us up at the hotel. Paul was also waiting and was loaded down with some loaner items. Paul had suffered a ESC fire on his plane back home just before coming down but made the trek anyway to support the team. He got talking with some of the guys and presto... magic happened. From Ac Glenn a Visa pattern plane, Marcelo Colombo contributed a JR TX and Andrew Jesky threw in his charger and battery packs! Now that's a great story!

Off we went and after starting to set up our planes we had additional AMA pilots arrive in search of a practice site. The AMA sites were plugged and there was word of at least two mid-airs. Chris Moon was involved in one and lost his plane... not sure who the other pilots were or just where on the site it happened. I am sure RCU may have additional information and I will try and get the details. I do know that Chris is getting lots of assistance in getting another airframe ready for the event.

We had a great day of practice with the US guys and really enjoyed the stories and discussion on all sorts of topics pattern related. We all packed up and headed to the AMA site for the Pilot's meeting. Rusty gave everyone the latest news and Jon Carter reviewed the ranking system for the Masters guys. We broke for dinner and watched the various planes iat the different sites going fthrough thier respective maneuvers. We did witness what appeared to be another plane go down at site #4 tonight but I have no detials on what occurred. I'll send my ace reporting team in tommorrow and try and get some details for everyone.

Tomorrow morning the contest starts with Masters and Intermediate on the morning shift at 0800. FAI and Advance will fly starting at 1300. Hartley is up first on Site #3 in his first ever appearance at the AMA site... he is excited.

Off to bed after a great dinner at Camp Canada!!