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The 2019 Tucson Aerobatic Shootout is a contest that I will never forget! Ever since I was a kid, I have dreamed of winning the Shootout. It seemed like everything aligned to make that happen in 2019. We arrived a week before the contest at the Tucson Radio Control Club to dial in the airplanes and get some practice in. The 104" Laser had great success all year and I leaned towards using that one once again at TAS. After a few days of practice, I decided that would be the airplane I would once again go with. The routine that I flew matched the airplane very well. Fortunately, the weather for the event was great all weekend. The format consisted of 5 total freestyle rounds. The first round was Friday afternoon. The field that the Shootout is held at (known as TIMPA) always takes some getting used to for me. I usually go into the first round without having made any previous flights at the field. Although I was more than happy with the score after the first round, I knew I had a ton of room for improvement and I also noticed that the other pilots had not flown to their potentials. So I knew that round 2 would be better for everyone. Sure enough, round 2 came around on Saturday morning and there was even better flying displayed. I felt very happy after my second round flight. The conditions were excellent. Going into the third round on Saturday afternoon/evening, I had two thousands (round wins). Out of the total of 5 rounds, each pilot dropped their two worst scores. With three being kept, I was hoping I would get another win in round 3. I wouldn't know for sure however until the scores were announced at the end of the contest on Saturday. Although I felt like I had a decently executed flight in round 3, I felt like I could have positioned the flight better. I later found out that I came very close to winning round 3 but missed it with a 991. Going into Sunday, we had two more flights. I felt pretty confident that I could win at least one of those two rounds to clinch the win. I went into round 4 feeling very calm and confident and came out with a pleasing flight. Going into the final round, I decided to make a couple portions of the flight a little lower and more exciting as not only I felt confident with my round 4 flight, but the crowd always expects something exciting for the final flight. After the results were announced, I found out that I did indeed pull of the win in round 4 and came up with a close 2nd in round 5 with a 997. With rounds 3 and 5 being thrown, this left me with three thousands for a total of a 3,000 score for the win. Final Results: 1. Jase Dussia 3,000.0 2. Spencer Nordquist 2,936.7 3. Bryant Mack 2,931.4 4. Gernot Bruckmann 2,827.1 5. Kal Reifsnyder 2,678.6 6. Santiago Perez 2,646.9 7. Yuhei Suzuki 2,576.6 8. Werner Kohlberger 2,548.0 9. Juan Sanchez 2,527.2 10. Cayden Bruce 2,397.8 11. Matt Stringer 2,316.0 12. Aaron Garle 2,289.6 13. Rhett Lambert 2,267.1 14. Mel Nipkow 2,252.6 15. Toru Kasai 2,249.7 16. Jj Hedrick 2,241.7 17. Miguel Alcala 2,079.5 Huge thank you to my mom and dad for their dedication all year! I can't say enough about the support from my sponsors, this win includes every single one of them! Thanks to all the TAS organizers. Without them, us pilots couldn't chase our dreams. What an extraordinary 2019!!!
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