Last year a new display team made their presence very known with a huge roster of show-stealing displays all over the UK. We were able to bring you 50% of them as Patrick Willson took the extraordinary Super Decathlon, a high winged very capable aircraft taken to the extreme by engineering and made his Old Buckenham debut.
He's back, but this year he's joined by the other half of the most talked about air display team of 2023; Phil Ansell. Phil's aircraft has one thing in common with Patricks - it was built by. Xtreme, the same company who souped up the Decathlon.
That's where the similarity ends. Phil's Xtreme XA42 is an aircraft you'd be forgiven for never having heard of. It's the preserve of air racing and the absolute maximum level of aerobatics. It weighs nothing, has 315 hp, can do 260mph and has something called a roll rate of 470 degrees a second. In layman's terms that means it can flip upside down, go right way up and then very nearly flip upside down again all in a second. About 8 years ago two airshow icons, Paul Bonhomme and Steve Jones were the first people ever to fly in formation through a building. Their aircraft of choice: The Xtreme XA. Only thing is that they used the XA41, and Phil has the XA42.
So there you have it; one 'everyday' aircraft upgraded so it can make physics seem optional, paired with a completely different aircraft, designed and built to confirm that physics is optional.
