Planes were in the sky above Salem this weekend as the annual aerobatics competition was underway at Leckrone Airfield.
About a dozen pilots flew in for the competition, including Brooks Mershon from western North Carolina.
Mershon, who is a commercial pilot and software engineer, says he began flying model airplanes at the age of six and has been involved in aerobatics competition since 2017.
This is Mershon’s second competition of the year. He is flying in the sportsman’s category and hopes to move up divisions in future years. Mershon says the association has a known sequence of events every pilot performs and he has created three others on his own within the parameters allowed.
“Every loop is perfect until you make mistakes. So when you start to do a loop the judge expects a 10 out of 10, and then anything you do like change heading or the third quarter of the loop is pinched or changes it’s geometry a bit these are deductions. You fly your loop and the judge goes, 7.5, and that goes down in your slot and you get judged in all these moves in a sequence.”
Mershon made two fuel stops on the four hour trip between his home near Ashville, North Carolina to Salem Leckrone Airport in what he called perfect weather. Other pilots flew in from Florida, California, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and other parts of Illinois to be part of the competition.
