Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the support and enthusiasm along the way. We definitely kept track and we really appreciated it. As far as takeaways from the contest, we learned a tremendous amount and are really excited going into the future.. I am doing a write-up for the US Team and future junior pilots as far as lessons learned and what worked, etc.

This biggest implication of the US vs. FAI rules has little to do with the mechanics of starting, finishing or the like. The adjustments were easy, including doing a direct finish instead of the finish sectors we have. The biggest difference is the gaggle dynamic that exists and gets reinforced due to the point structure in place in FAI rules. We learned that it is very costly to try to outsmart the gaggle.

The Club Class Nationals at Hobbs were great practice for the Junior worlds.. The tasks seemed to be as intense and reasonably reflected the difficulty in tasking we experienced. I would definitely like to see more Nationals conducted in such a manner, with the variety of Assigned and Area tasks that we had there.

The other major takeaway is the need to practice team flying. I am now a complete convert. Team-flying can be extremely effective and we were able to fly a lot better because we did this. We were all amazed that we were able to stick together so well. Going into 2017, JP and I plan on practicing team-flying as much as we can. We would like to make informal weekend meets at Mifflin where we can fly with John Good and do ground school on tactics and strategy so that we can perform better in the upcoming Junior Worlds.

Our idea is to also expand this to other serious juniors within a reasonable radius of Mifflin and hopefully make this the basis of a consistent junior racing contingent.

Something that would be helpful to us developing skills and tactics for future world competitions is if team-flying were to be allowed at the National level. It would certainly be a great way to implement the practice we intend on doing during the off-season in a racing environment.

Best Regards,
Daniel