RV Series - RV/IAC Aerobatic Competition Standings

I have been involved in aerobatic competition for ten years now and in all that time my wife, Kathy only came to two or three contests with me. Boring, she said! I was the contest director for the U.S. National Aerobatic Championships this year and the preparation was a full-time job for over seven months leading up to the contest. I have always told Kathy that she would get more enjoyment out of a contest if she became involved as a volunteer. She finally relented and offered to help the contest registrar at Nationals. She loved it! She's hooked!
Two weeks after Nationals is the Mark Fullerton Memorial contest in Rome, Georgia. Kathy begs to go. You don't travel light with Kathy. Deciding what to take can be a problem.



Solution: Take it all!



The pups settle down and even sleep for the 1.5 hour trip to Rome.



We hit the ground and Kathy is off to volunteer in registration again, then as a recorder, then as a boundary judge. She has the bug, bad! Down-loading the wife, two pups, four bags and the tool kit and I'm ready to compete.



Jerry Esquenazi is there, too. But he has left the RV-8 at home and borrowed an Extra 330 to compete against me.



I have to show off the trophy I brought home. The contest is flown in memory of my friend, Mark Fullerton who died way to young last year. Having a reminder of Mark on my shelf is all the reward I need.



There are a few contest left this season. Get out there and compete or spectate or volunteer. Here's the RV Competition Standings to date:

Very emotional

Ron,
I couldn't make it to Rome to watch you all but from the pictures it looks you did an incredible job and Mark would have been more than proud. The trophy is very cool and I'm blown away by how nice it looks... honestly I got a little chocked up seeing Mark's plane on the trophy

congratulations

Way to go Ron, Kathy, and two critters,
Just goes to show what an RV can do in the master's hands.
Bill McLean
RV-4 slider
lower AL

Haven't seen the 8 that loaded since Triple Tree some years back.. Congrats!

Fantastic message and pictures Ron! I'm glad she decided to get involved. It definitely looked like Kathy was having fun at both Nationals and Rome. She was always smiling!

The sport becomes a lot more interesting to someone when they know what's going on. To a mere spectator, it can get kind of boring to watch after a couple of hours. But once you know how the figures are supposed to be flown and what's behind the scoring it can really draw you in. Then when you do get involved and experience how much preparation it takes to fly that 3-4 minute sequence as flawlessly as once can do, that's when you really appreciate and enjoy the sport.

I like the pictures of stuffing all of those bags and pups into the RV-8! Last year at Nationals in Oshkosh, I went shopping for my favorite beers (Spotted Cow and Leinenkugels) and food stuff (a grocery bag or two full of cheese, sausages, etc). My fellow competitors parked near me in the hangar with their Pitt's and Extra's were wondering what I was going to do with all of that stuff. They watched in awe as I loaded the RV!

The trophies and medals are a great way to memorialize such a wonderful and terribly missed friend. What an honor it must be to have that trophy displayed in your home!