Let me add my congrats to Will DeMauro for his long sought, and very well deserved win in Advanced. As Dennis pointed out above, Will has helped countless new electric fliers with their setups. I'm one of them! I'm extremely proud of how Will has comported himself during this quest.
Congrats also to John Paris and Jerry Haupt who finished in the second and third spots in Advanced respectively. Exciting for me was the fact that there were two of my Crossfire designs in the top four places in Advanced! Jerry flew one and so did Tom Luciano. So congrats also to my flying buddy, Tom Luciano. This was Tom's first Nats, and he placed a very credible fourth in Advanced. The back story to Tom's Nats adventure is amazing to me, but I will have to first get Tom's permission to relate just how much he went through to get to the Nats. Trust me it was a lot...
Yes, electrics are here to stay, and so far they have had a pretty good two years. Last year electric powered models swept the first five places at the World Championships, and now they have captured three of the top four places at the Nats in Advanced. This is being written just before the Top Five Flyoff is to begin, so there is a good chance that more will be added to that list in the ensuing hours. Also electric planes are leading the scoring at the European Championships as this is being written.
This is all great and fun to write about, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the event is called Precision Aerobatics. Not Glow Powered PA, or Electric powered PA. Our goal should be to scribe perfect maneuvers on the inside surface of the hemisphere in which we fly. It shouldn't matter if the prop is being swung by glow power, electric power, steam power, nuclear power, or by two chipmunks on a turntable. We are all brothers and sisters in an event that is about geometry. Electric is here to stay, but glow is not going away any time soon, so let's shelve the rhetoric about any feud between the two types of power and just go fly.
Congrats to all who flew at the Nats in all of the events; you are all winners because you participated.
Bob Hunt