"Steve R." wrote in message
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"Beav" wrote in message
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"Steve R." wrote in message
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These guys all do very aggressive 3D work and they do
it in a controlled manner.

Like I said somewhere else, "'Til something goes wrong" ;-)) Then they do
make a fast lawn dart:-)

This is true! However, it's been my experience that if something goes
wrong, it doesn't matter if you're doing 3D or not, it doesn't take long
to become the proverbial lawn dart. ;-)

Having said that, I've watched Curtis fly long enough to have been witness
to some of his more spectacular crashes as well as some of his more
impressive saves. I've seen him shed a tail rotor, or at least the
control of it, in hard 3D maneuvering from about 6 to 10 feet up and still
put it on the ground, on the skids and in one piece! It's "amazing" what
that guy can auto out of! :-)

At the 2003 3D Masters (he won of course) he went out to fly his "thank you"
flight. He took off with the intention of a quick sideways flip to inverted,
putting the heli into a depression in the ground, which would've "hidden" it
from the spectators. He did that aright, but he didn't get it OUT of the
depression, he made the depression deeper instead.

It was a REAL shame he did that, coz he really is a thing to watch. He also
took half his tail blades off doing tick-tocks at zero feet (-2 inches
actually) a flight or two earlier. he killed that heli too.

He didn't make any of those mstakes this year though

Beav