I throw a Champion a lot these days. And to think I nearly sold it off. I just had to give it a little more time to gel. Longer, sweeping fade than a Teebird.
I feel the same way about the Thunderbird. I purchased a Protostar the very second I could and give it a few throws. It held a line nicely but at the time did not wow me. I then purchased numerous GStars because for a month I had to have everything in GStar. I like those as well, but I converted mostly over to Trilogy.
Slowly I gravitated back to the Thunderbird because there is not a good Trilogy equivilent to something that flies like a TeeBird. Boatman - crashes too hard and requires a ton of snap to fly straight. Saint Pro - closer, but needs to be seasoned a little to get what I was looking for. The Champion Thunderbird made its way back into my bag.
And then my PFN Star TeeBirds began to fail me. I cannot explain why, but suddenly they were coming out either with too much height or with too much hyzer. The newer Star TeeBirds are a tick too overstable (overstable, not super stable) for the precision shot I was looking for, so they did not last long. The Thunderbird started to pick that slack up. For fun I gave it numerous forehand shots because I do not normally throw forehands. They immediately impressed me with that shot.
So I started giving the Thunderbird more and more shots, and it lived up to its hype. I can even trust to stretch it out to 400 feet, which is just a tick below my overall maximum distance, but since I rarely need 410-415 feet exactly, and when I do it better be on target, I am now throwing these Thunderbirds on my max distance shots because they are generally more on target, and therefore compensating a loss of 10-15 feet by being more on target. I have since pulled out my Trespasses.
Finally, the best thing about my Champion Thunderbirds is that they are unfazed by most situations. Headwinds rarely affect and they excel flying over elevation drops where discs like my Trespass would lose all control.
This week I coupled them with a new C-Line FD, and between the two of them I feel that I can cover almost all of my drives with just these two discs. While it is still an experiment, this last week I removed the River, Gazelle, Roadrunner, and Trespass for the FD and Thunderbird. Only the XXX remains because of its thumber shot.
As for the DX Thunderbird, I was initially intrigued because I would like to see how they would fly once they were beaten up, but once I got one in my hands, I immediately put it back. For some reason it felt uncomfortable and shallow and nothing like my Champions. Maybe during the winter I may pick one up just so that if I lose it, I am out only 8 dollars versus the higher price tag of my champs.
