2008 Harold Neumann Barnstormer

The Kansas City Aerobatic Club, IAC Chapter 15 hosted their annual aerobatic contest on September 5-6 at the New Century AirCenter (KIXD), Olathe, KS. The remains of hurricane Gustov parked over southern Missouri and blanketed the area with low clouds and drizzle until late on Thursday. So again this year the weather was very challenging and resulted in the registration and practice slots being delayed by half a day.

To provide more time for folks to deal with the marginal weather, the start of the contest was delayed until noon on Friday. 19 pilots, from 5 differnt states managed to find their way to New Century and contest flights started in earnest at about 1pm. By 6:30 that same day everyone had flown two competition flights and many also flew a practice flight earlier in the day.

Saturday started out with near perfect conditions for a contest and all the Primary and Intermediate pilots finished their third and final competition flight by 10 am without incident. However during the Sportsman flights, Aaron McCartan broke a rudder cable on his Pitts S-1S during his sequence in he box. Chief judge Bob Buckley made his smartest decision of the contest...he handed the radio over to line judge John Morrissey. John calmly talked Aaron through a near perfect landing without the benefit of using his rudder while the tower controllers ensured all other traffic was kept clear and the emergency equipment was standing by. The contest resumed shortly after pushing Aaron's bird clear of the runway, but the clouds moved back in and forced a pause in the flying. With rain threatening from the west the remainder of the flights were cancelled to give everyone an opportunity to make it home safely. The final results are listed at the bottom of the page.

I also want to especially thank all the volunteers and sponsors who helped make this event possible. As we all know these events would be impossible to pull off without the help from the dozens of folks who took part of their weekend to ensure the pilots could show us their best flying.

Click here for an aerial view of the New Century aerobatic box and parking areas.

A summary of the 2007 contest is here.

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