**Team AVSIM Accolades and Congratulations** Post Here

[Sonar5 3]

Great Job Team AVSIM!Whatever the outcome, you guys exhibited outstanding planning, organization, strategy, airmanship, and awesome TEAM Camaraderie.Looking at the Map shows our route as a work of art, and you were the first team to bring the Baton Home. Great Job!Congratulations on finishing, and I look forward to the official results later on, once the other teams come home, and the Judges tally the time..To Team Sim-Outhouse and Team Flightsim, a hearty congratulations as well, as you fly the Baton towards its final destination. Keep up the good work, and good luck.To the Judges and race planners, excellent job designing the Race, bonuses and putting the time in to pull off another grand example of why we all love this hobby. Thank You.Best Regards,Joe RanosSonar5PP-ASELRecap Threads:Race Progress Maphttp://users.adelphia.net/~mattsmith19/RTW/resources.htmOfficial AVSIM Race Thread #1http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=4392&page=Official AVSIM Race Thread #2http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=4532&page=Official AVSIM Race Thread #3http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=4642&page=Official AVSIM PIREPS Thread #1http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...g_id=4210&page=Rules:http://users.adelphia.net/~mattsmith19/RTW/rules.htm

[Jay R 0]

To the team,Although I wanted to fly in the race this year, time and unforeseen circumstances prevailed. However in watching the team do their thing, I am absolutely impressed with the effort and outstanding professionalism shown during this race.You guys were organized and focused more so than any other year. Congrats again to you and you better beleive I will be training to fly in next years race.AVSIM rulez!!! :-kewl[hr width=100%" size=1 color="black]http://forefrontgrp.com/MyLogo2.JPGJason | General Aviation Fan

[RFields5421 1]

Great racing this year.Every one undoubtedly had their best year for lower numbers of crashes. The flying just keeps getting better.Some innovative thinking and route planning.Great job.

[buzzbee 51]

What a great time. I really enjoyed the last 4 days. IT was very exciting and very informative. My Flight Sim 9 is running and looking better than ever, I learned how to fly some new airplanes and I think overall my airmanship is better than before the race.I am sad to see it end. To all of my mates, thanks for the organization, planning and hardwork. What a great group of people. It is great to share this hobby online in multiplayer and teamspeak with people who have a real passion for it. I look forward to doing it again.Go Team Avsim

[cbtaylor 15]

I would also like to express my appreciation. It was great to be able to participate more this year. I had a blast! I am especially grateful to my teammates for the comraderie and support. I really enjoyed the Sun-n-Fun and team flights, and want to give a nod to the planners for including more of those this year.Buzz, it was a real pleasure flying as your wing on a few legs. The wing flights were helpful in working through the butterflies on the first few hops I flew on. That really helped when I got the opportunity to fly my own legs as prime. I felt much more comfortable by that point.I felt like a pro by the time I took the leg from Honduras to Jamaica yesterday. I really learned a lot this year and am already looking forward to next year's race.Go Team AVSIM!Craig "CB" TaylorP.S. Someone had me down as "Charles Taylor" on the roster spreadsheet on Gazer's site. Please update.

[Guest TornadoWilkes]

What a great race this year, congratulations on coming home!! It's really nice to see the enjoyment that you get from the race and makes all the effort worthwhile.Good luck in the results

[Guest 2002cbr600f4i]

As a rookie this year, I have to say, this has been one of the most fun, rewarding, challenging, and exhillerating experiences ever! Not only was the flying fun, and brought focus to a hobby that is usually pretty unfocused, but it also served as a motivator to really dive in and learn a lot of new aspects to flying that I didn't know previously.Some of my more memorable moments -"Radio AVSim" with Gazer DJ'ing as "Euro-squad" did the Pacific hops. I was listing to the teamspeak feed through shoutcast while at work on Monday and nearly fell out of my chair laughing as I listened to them.Being team task-master for the Fun+Sun run. Nearly having a heart attack when the pilot of the Extra flight crashed and somebody else took that aircraft and announced "I'm airborne.... And I'm inverted!" and remained that way for the entire 11 mile hop to Grand Canaria...Taking my first baton hop - in the pitch black of the Sahara... And then my second flying out over Iraq and seeing the sunrise.The group DC3 flight! What a blast! It looked like we were about to drop paratroopers over Normandy!Being tapped to be the wingman for the Piper J3 Cub flight, and getting frustrated as I practiced landings over and over and kept tipping it over on stopping. I finally nailed it and brought it down perfectly on the leg!Flying wing in South America for sfoofficer, forgetting to turn on my Duenna, coming back, landing, retaking off, and still beating him to our destination even though he had a good 30nm lead on me. Gotta love those 25000-->3000 ft rapid decents!Watching intently on the Google Earth tracker as Baston and pretty much the rest of Team AVSim chaised down the SimOuthouse Pilot from Bermuda to LPFL. And then jumping up and yelling "YES!" when it was announed that BOTH SimOuthouse pilots had crashed and Baston stuck the landing. (He definitely gets my vote for AVSim MVP this year!)And finally, the group hop from GCXO to Grand Canaria to finish. Seeing 9 Mustangs lined up behind Vince's P-38... You'd think we were invading!All in all, this has been a fantastic experience and I look forward to continuing the new friendships I've built over the practice sessions and the race. You guys have taught me a ton of stuff about instrument flying, and how to handle these planes. I pledge to spend the next year learning how to fly the big iron, more planes, and become an effective planner so I can help out even more.Win or lose, you guys kick butt!!!And to the other teams, thanks for making this such a fun and challenging race. All of the teams suffered setbacks, and all pulled through. We all have a LOT to be proud of.--Mike

[Guest d.lahrman]

The other team members who posted before me have taken the words right off my keyboard. After several years of considering joining in this race, I'm very glad I finally made the leap (thank you, jt for getting me off the ground). The race was an outstanding experience and I can't imagine a better group to fly with. I was amazed at the amount of planning, coordination, dedication and time exhibited by the team. I regret that I was unable to make more of a contribution. It was very frustrating to have to sit at work while most of the rest of the team was flying. BTW...thanks to all the others that made it possible to follow the race using Google Earth and the near real-time tracking through our web browsers.I will be spending the next year practicing similar routes in similar planes to improve my RTW flying skills. Is it too early to start having team practices? :7

[Guest Basten_TFF754]

These have been some great days which I'll never forget! Loved every minute. Especially the long corridor legs with all the mad stuff going on in the teamspeak channel. The best moment of the race for me was my safe touchdown at LPFL in the B747-400F after both pilots of Sim-outhouse crashed on the same approach. The various group flights were big fun too, particularly the last sprint home was great to do!I would like to thank all the crew the RTW race and all my fellow pilots of the Avsim team for this GREAT race. Can't wait for next year!______________________________Basten HeidemaProud MD11 AddictFLY DC JETS!

[buzzbee 51]

That was some great flying. Talk about a difficult landing!Very Impressive!

[vcaptmattsmith 3]

Fellows,You flew a great race this year. Well done! Needless to say, it was one of the closest and most exciting we've ever had.I know that the enjoyment went even beyond pilots in the race this year - I've received mail from people who followed along with you via the Windows Media feed and the Google Earth tracking...in other words, now you're famous! So great job on opening the race up to the public.We (the Executive Committee) will try to put together some sort of comprehensive race recap over the next week or so. And of course, we'll be putting together the Race Journal.Thanks for flying, and we'll see you all in 2008!Best,Matt Smith

[Guest iiMiller]

Hey gents. I flew for SOH as Gibbons and am making the rounds reading threads at Avsim and Flightsim. This was my first year flying in the RTWR. "And then jumping up and yelling "YES!" when it was announed that BOTH SimOuthouse pilots had crashed and Baston stuck the landing."I'm sure you meant that in the best way possible! LOL I was at work and missed most of that carnage. Nice piece of work to all Avsim pilots and planners. Edit: Just posted that Flightsim has won. A heck of a race all around. Congratulations to Flightsim. Gibbons

[Guest Shalomar]

Congrats on keeping the trophy where it belongs! I am DEFINITELY flying next year!!!Best Regards, Donny:-waveFLYing? It's cool. Trillions of birds and insects can't be wrong.

[DarkCharizma 10]

I had a really great time this year. Thanks to the team, it was great fun racing with you. Thanks to Team FlightSim and Team Sim-Outhouse for the hard competition that made this year's race so exciting. Thanks to the Race Committee, and all others involved in making this race a reality :)It was really exciting this year, especially the last two days. It was much easier to follow the race this year, with the Google Earth tracking and that stuff, which made the race even more fun. Our TeamSpeak channel that turned into Radio Avsim on the long corridor legs, made it more fun to follow the race up close even on those long flights :DThe teams flew better than ever before, making the race really close. After having completed the race, it was a tense couple of hours waiting for Team FlightSim to arrive at the Canary Islands. Unfortunately we didn't win this year, but there wasn't much more we could have done. We flew a great race, and that's all we can do. We'll just have to try again next year :)I hope I will see all of you again next year (and a few new pilots), and if I don't see you until then, have a great time :)Great job everyone!Edit: Oh, and congratulations to Team FlightSim for winning! :)Klas

[Guest 2002cbr600f4i]

Sorry man.... Yeah, I didn't mean it in a vindictive way, just a "Yes, we still have a chance" way. You guys really had us sweating there after pulling that manuever using the corridors in a way we hadn't thought of. We DID all feel really badly for you guys when that happened. Nobody wants to win that way. But then, this is a test of airmanship, and stuff like that does happen. It was a very difficult landing there regardless (I tried it in the Lear just for fun and missed 4 times and then crashed on my 5th try.)To be honest, if you guys hadn't had trouble there, it would have been a 3 way horserace to the finish and it would have been VERY tight. --Mike