GuppyPuppy said:
My advice....drink heavily. (John Belushi, Animal House)
Dude, try not to get too caught up in Nationals. Bunch of geeky judges making sure you act "professional", at least their definition of the word. Too many students take the Nationals too seriously. The reality of the situation is that very few schools take most of the awards. Let's see...UND, ERAU (both campuses, but PRC is better), Western Michigan, Ohio State, USAFA, OK State, etc... What do these schools have in common??? Lots of money given to their flight teams. I remember that ERAU-DB had a $90,000 budget back in 1991. How are teams to compete with that?
Things I remember from Nationals...
1. Getting the whole team to sing "Why don't we get drunk (and screw)" while staging aircraft.
2. Contests with female team members like seeing who can blow the pitot tube to get the highest airspeed indication, and seeing how long they could suck on the stall horn.
3. Lighting fireworks as people were leaving the banquet.
4. Going to the strip club in New Orleans.
5. Dropping bikini underwear in the message drop competition.
6. Making fun of the UND team and Wally Funk
7. Playing football and frisbie.
8. Seeing the USAFA van on cement blocks with the wheels missing
9. Saran wrapping the ERAU-PRC van
10. Hanging our school's banner on UND's tower.
Anyway, to answer your question...keep practicing, maybe once a week for each event. Do your best, but don't fixate on the competition. My first year on the team made me believe that we were a bad a$$ team (before nationals). We walked away with zero awards.
Make sure you have some fun while you are at the competition. I can't tell you how many members of other teams wished they were on our team when they saw how much fun we were having.
Cheers!
GP
Nicely said, GP! We were a good Regionals team, but at Nationals we were always in the middle of an 8 way tie for last place, hehehe (although that's improved a lot since I left...wonder why, lol)! I know I always gave it my best shot at whatever event I was in, but our whole team was there to enjoy it and have a lot of fun. Sounds like GP and his team got some good pranks in! Many of those on his list sound familiar! Our team and CMSU had a great time at every competition. We always had to one-up the other with the best pranks.
Here are some of my fond memories, some pranks included:
1. Putting about 4 dozen crickets in a CMSU guy's soft-top Jeep.
2. Swiping a CMSU room key, then our team going in while they were gone and putting EVERYTHING in the room into the bathroom...EVERYthing...matresses too...lol, that was great!
3. Having a key made matching their rental van; moving it around the parking lot for a day or two just to confuse them, then filling it about 2 feet deep with packing peanuts.
4. "Discovering" a species of cricket in Stillwater that could fly and naming them "Fricketts."
5. Touring the Budweiser Brewery in St. Louis and watching the shocked, helpless looks on my teammates faces as they watched gallons and gallons of beer draining onto the floor from a tank.
6. Making fun of the ERAU robots...then watching them clean the floor with everyone!
7. Going to Cabellas in N. Dakota and watching a girl on our team perfom "suggestive" positions with a moose statue.
8. Pushing and pulling planes all over creation for too d**n long.
9. Being the first Nav team to fly...then sitting in isolation until the end of time...at least the girl I flew with was hot!
10. Seeing a gas station in the ghetto in Mississipi with a sign that said, "Loiter at your own risk."
Man, those were good times! You have to make the most of the competition. If you go there strictly to compete, you'll go nuts. Have fun! You'll make a lot of good friends while there.
