Congratulations to FlyONSPEED

The FlyONSPEED team are the Grand Champions of the EAA Founder's Innovation Award competition! Congratulations to the whole team, lead by "Vac" Vaccaro, an all-around crazy and super swell dude. See the EAA news report here:

FlyONSPEED Wins Founder’s Innovation Prize Grand Championship

Airball was honored to come in second behind Vac's team.

Coming in third were Mike and Ian Foale (a father/son team) with Solar Pilot Guard, a really cool solar-powered suite of sensors and notification.

Also in the finals were Ed Wischmeyer with Expanded Envelope Exercises, which seek to familiarize pilots with flight outside their "comfort zone" so they don't panic when they have to do that; and Ray Kwong of Epic Optix who showed us how HUDs can enhance safety and situational awareness.

At some point the photographers asked Vac and his team to pose with their grand prize trophy, but he insisted that the rest of us (2nd and 3rd place winners) pose with him too. This is just the kind of guy he is. So here we all are, one big happy family:

The most delightful thing about the event was the "back room" discussions. We all supported one another and were excited to collaborate in whatever way we can. We all cheered one another on. We checked out one another's tech (for those of us dorks who traveled to Oshkosh with piles of geeky junk -- I'm looking at you Vac and Ihab).

Expect, in particular, that Airball and FlyONSPEED will be working really closely together. The killer system is one that has both visuals and sound. We're excited to make aviation better and more fun, and we hope you enjoy watching the journey.

And again -- congratulations Vac and team! Stupendous job!!!!