EFA Plots Win Again: Farquharson, Lemeland, and Catanese WIN
Flying W Airport, New Jersey – August 2009
The Executive Flyers’ acro pilots traveled to the Flying “W” airport in New Jersey in August to participate in the Kathy Jaffey aerobatic challenge and the results are, once again, impressive.
The day started off with the aircraft taking off from both our Hanscom and Lawrence flight facilities.
Mark Rogge ferried his new Super Decathlon from Lawrence with John Perkins while Bob Farquharson flew our Super Decathlon from Hanscom with Marc Nathanson on his wing in his Pitts S1T, the “Thank You Terri”, named after his lovely wife. Thanks to Terri for volunteering her time to calculate scores.
They were met at the Flying “W” by our aerobatic instructor, Tony Catanese and competitors, Lise Lemeland, Dave Shaver, Bob Farquharson, and Jeff O’halloran.
This was Tony’s second contest. He won the Grass Roots award last year in his first contest. Tony took second place on his second flight. This was Lise Lemeland’s first contest and she won the Grass Roots award this year. The Grass Roots award is presented to the highest scoring first time competitor flying an aircraft with less than a 200hp engine. This is quite a feat as she won it hands down with two very impressive competition flights. Lise lives in upper state New York and travels a long distance to practice her acro skills with us. She caught on to aerobatics quickly and we expect her to win more awards in the future. Look for articles written by Lise in the IAC magazine. She reports that this may be sometime in 2010.
Bob Farquharson came in second overall with a win on his first flight. We should see him move up to the Sportsman category soon. We thank Bob for his beautiful photos that you see in this article. Bob just returned from a competition in Tennessee. I think he has been bitten by the acro bug.
Dave Shaver, once again, flew very well in the Sportsman category in our Super Decathlon, a sequence he had not practiced and in a different airplane than the one he is used to flying. Dave’s performance still earned him good standings against 18 competitors in this category.
Mark Rogge flew his Super Decathlon N50YY well. His second flight was hindered by a low cloud deck that forced him to fly at a lower altitude-a very daunting task. This made his flight much more difficult and the clouds seemed to show up only for Mark’s flight. He still flew nice figures in a difficult situation. We appreciate Mark making his airplane available for our use.
John Perkins placed third and continues to improve his aerobatic skills. He recently reported that he is in the process of mating the wing of his One Design to the fuselage. We may see John flying her soon. He flew one very good flight with good figures and is headed for more awards in future contests.
This was Jeff O’halloran’s very first contest. He began his aerobatics course this summer and learned a great deal flying with Tony Catanese in his back seat during the contest. Jeff dove right into the contest and flew well considering the very little acro time he accumulated before the contest. I suspect we will see Jeff wearing medals soon.
If you are interested in learning aerobatics or would just like to hear more about it, Marc Nathanson would be happy to spend time with you and explain our aerobatic courses and how to prepare for competitions. Remember that we teach aerobatics not to compete, but to make all of us safer pilots who have fun to boot.
Marc Nathanson
