I first met Big Art about 20 years ago at one of the early Vintage Stunt Championships. At night, we sat around the pool at the Roadway Inn and talked airplanes. Early on, he seemed like an old friend.
Big Art had entered both Old time and Classic, and was having some problems with one of his reworked OS .35S engines. It wouldn't give a good stunt run. One afternoon he had the problem OS disassembled and sitting in front of him out at the flying field. I asked him what was wrong with the engine, and Art got a sad look on his face and said " I don't know, I'm supposed to know everything about these engines, but I don't know what's wrong with this one!" (This was like hearing Noah say that he didn't know how to build boats!) Big Art has been a respected and well known engine Guru for many years. You had to have been there to understand how funny this really was.
I think the problem was either a bad piston and cylinder assembly, too little nitro, or both! Tucson is about 2000 feet or so above sea level, and sometimes engines that run fine at home don't like to run at the VSC.
I sure hope that Big Art recovers from his stroke.
What a wonderful man!