Starship Flight Test 12 was better than expected

I'm a bit overwhelmed from watching Flight Test 12, to the point that I don't have much to say. I watched on the streaming channel I usually watch, NASASpaceflight, and they're still putting their flight videos together. 

So here are some things that captured my attention in no particular order. 

The V3 stack, SuperHeavy and Starship, seemed to fuel considerably faster than Version 2 did. I tuned into the coverage with about 20 to 25 minutes left in the count and fueling had started but the fuel and oxygen levels were no more than 1/4 full. They were full before T-60 seconds. One of the things that gets mentioned in various places is how they increased the size of the fuel pipe into the booster's tank and point out that the pipe is essentially the height and diameter of a Falcon 9. 

The V3 stack seems to accelerate faster than V2 did, reaching Max Q faster and running through its fuel load to staging faster. 

I'm not sure if the reason I couldn't see the Ship after stage separation like I did for Flight 11, was from the trajectory being on the south side of Cuba instead of north of it or because it was still broad daylight and well over an hour before sunset. Considering how much harder it is to see in the daylight when you're not sure exactly where to look, I'll put that in the "maybe next time or some other time" file. 

NASASpaceflight lost coverage of the returning SuperHeavy booster and I have no idea if that went as expected or just what. I know they had one engine shut down, and 1 of 33 wouldn't show up on a test like this - at least not in terms of having too little thrust to make some flight goals.

All in all it looked like quite an improvement from the Version 2 Starship/SuperHeavy. Watching the Ship come down through the atmosphere to splash down in the Indian Ocean west of Australia looked smoother and better than other test flights. I didn't notice any areas where parts of the hull or the flaps were melting through. 

So it struck me as a giant leap in performance, and worth the wait. As Jared Isaacman put it: