Speedy Sport Class Racer Remains In Flight Test

By Aero-News Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

After a gear collapse at Reno's Stead Field in pre-race testing in 2004 removed this promising plane from contention in the Sport class, the many fans and supporters of Jon and Patricia Sharp's Team Nemesis were looking forward to seeing the plane at Oshkosh. But they didn't show!

We assumed they were here and we just hadn't seen them -- yes, you can spend a week at Oshkosh and not see anywhere near everything, you betcha -- until a reader dropped in to visit the Aero-News mobile office. He described his difficulties in finding a couple of exhibits, and by putting our heads together, we were able to steer him to everything except Nemesis NXT.

After he left, our reader visited the site registration folks and they had no record of Team Nemesis, Jon Sharp Racing, Nemesis NXT, or any of the other permutations of names under which the fast glass kit plane might have been registered.

Our recollection was that the team had intended to be there, and their website confirmed that with a suggestion that they would be. A mystery graphic showed a tennis ball, labeled with the legend REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT and the words: "Come visit us at EAA Airventure 2005 to discover the best way to use 4 tennis balls."

The best guess -- and it was only a guess -- that the Aero-News Airventure team's collective wisdom could come up with was that NXT was running a new four-bladed prop and the tennis balls were used to guard the ends of the prop blades while at rest. Yes, it was a pretty lame guess but it's what we came up with.

We did the best thing we could think of to get to the bottom of it: we went right to the Sharps. Patricia Sharp replied, "At the last minute, we decided it would be best to stay home and continue with our flight tests in preparation for Reno, our true goal."

So how well are things going, really?

"All is wonderful!  Our tests are progressing with flying (very fast) colors!"

So there you have it, fans. There's nothing wrong with the plane, and the team didn't neglect you willfully. It's just that they still have things to do to be ready for this year's Reno Air Races (September 14-18), which are just six weeks away. And they sound intent on being there.

Which gives Team Nemesis a relatively short time to get the kinks, if any, worked out of NXT and to make and test any last-minutE improvements to the ship.

"Sorry for disappointing all those expecting us at Oshkosh!" Patricia Sharp wrote us. For a racing plane and racing team, it's more important that the fans at Reno not be disappointed, after all.

Whether the competition are looking forward to seeing NXT with such relish, well, that's a question for another day. The original Nemesis Formula 1 racer, designed and flown by Jon Sharp, won an incredible 47 races of 51 starts and hangs in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Nemesis NXT, available as a kit, may be the airplane that fulfills the promise of faster speeds in Sport than Unlimited class.

Which raises the question, would they enter it Unlimited as well as Sport classes? In both?

FMI: www.nemesisnxt.com, www.airrace.org