Flight B/C

[Hartman]

The challenges the venue provided were not because of the AC (which we were really thankful it was off) but more related to the height and obstacles at different heights. Mr. Anderson and others ran the Div C event very well.

I will also provide the following advice to all teams- make sure when you have your flight times in your log that you specify "minutes" and "seconds" as the units of time. Not doing this cost our students a medal with the 10% time deduction (well, I am not exactly sure of the 6th place cutoff but we flew 2:38 on my non-official timer). The rule was properly applied by Mr. Anderson, but it doesn't mean it didn't "sting" very, very badly for our students in the event. It was completely an oversight by our team and we "owned" the error.

Overall, the event was still run very well and we are thankful that Mr. Anderson supervises this event!

Wow, extremely unfortunate for your team. I can confirm with Cat that your team would have placed with that score; 6th had 2:34.

To be clear, I am not putting blame for the draft on AC. It was off during the whole competition period. Anderson and his crew did a great job managing the venue and keeping the event on time (for both B and C!).
The draft was caused by other factors. My coach has told me before that air tends to get crappier later in the day which I agree with from my competition experience, but I'm not sure of the cause. Our suspicion is that the body heat from the spectators causes an imbalance of temperature, creating a draft. Maybe more experienced fliers/coaches can weigh in on this phenomenon?

[pumptato-cat]

I'm not very experienced in flying in new venues, but here's my take on it.
I think temperature may contribute to the currents some, but I was talking to some people who went to nats and they all mentioned there being more spectators near the end of the day. Since more people are free in the last slot, they typically support their team by watching builds. For example, at my states tourney, half my team came to watch Flight in the last time slot. I'm guessing the increased currents may be caused by more people in the venue. But then again, there are many more factors involved(temperature? humidity?).

Thanks to Mr. Anderson for running nats so well! I'm sure many(if not all) competitors were very excited to see a competition without AC. Sounded like a challenging site, but also a lot of fun.

[Sapphire]

I'm not very experienced in flying in new venues, but here's my take on it.
I think temperature may contribute to the currents some, but I was talking to some people who went to nats and they all mentioned there being more spectators near the end of the day. Since more people are free in the last slot, they typically support their team by watching builds. For example, at my states tourney, half my team came to watch Flight in the last time slot. I'm guessing the increased currents may be caused by more people in the venue. But then again, there are many more factors involved(temperature? humidity?).

Thanks to Mr. Anderson for running nats so well! I'm sure many(if not all) competitors were very excited to see a competition without AC. Sounded like a challenging site, but also a lot of fun.

I went in the last block. Can confirm over half my team watched my flight and the room was super hot and humid. I don't think the spectators mattered that much because of the nets, pretty sure it was just an air density difference between the front and back half of the court. Maybe a thermal or two.

[coachchuckaahs]

My B div team from Kingsport TN was able to participate in an indoor event in Johnson City, sanctioned by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, (AMA), but also included SO plane flying.

While the ceiling was over 100 feet, the top flight we had on the SO plane was to about 50 feet, and the flight was 5 minutes, 15 seconds long! The plane ran out of rubber around 30 feet. We did not have an opportunity to try a thinner piece of rubber because it was time for the super lightweight planes to fly (1.5g or lighter). I believe that a 6 minute flight at 50 feet was entirely possible with just a change of rubber.

The two students also flew AMA Limited Penny Plane, as did several other SO students. We chose to fly with 1.5g of rubber (rubber is not limited in LPP) because this qualified us for records in F1M, an international version of penny plane. Both student went home with new national records for Youth Junior in a Category 4 site for F1M. the final record set by J/P. Hennaux was 10:29! His next flight would have eclipsed that, but the plane got hung on the scoreboard.

Coach Chuck

[randomdogonapc]

Wow, such great results! I unfortunately couldn’t make it, but I’m still itching to getting something in the air again!

[pumptato-cat]

I went as well! For anyone here interested in progressing further in free flight--go to an AMA competition! I had so much fun(didn't place well in my events though lol) talking to people and flying. Everyone's really friendly and welcoming and you'll learn a ton at pretty much any competition. I haven't had this much fun in forever!
Here's a link--go for it if you're interested https://www.modelaircraft.org/event-calendar

randomdogonapc--if you really wanna fly but have nowhere to go, maybe a living-room flyer such as Scraps would be fun to build and fly?

[coachchuckaahs]

While scraps is a blast with little to risk, consider building a plane that completed with ministik rules. It is similar, and can be flown competitively at ama contests.

Full disclosure: most of my kids and their parents built scraps during covid, and none have built ministik. But moving forward, I think that may be a more viable path

Coach Chuck

[bjt4888]

I went as well! For anyone here interested in progressing further in free flight--go to an AMA competition! I had so much fun(didn't place well in my events though lol) talking to people and flying. Everyone's really friendly and welcoming and you'll learn a ton at pretty much any competition. I haven't had this much fun in forever!
Here's a link--go for it if you're interested https://www.modelaircraft.org/event-calendar

randomdogonapc--if you really wanna fly but have nowhere to go, maybe a living-room flyer such as Scraps would be fun to build and fly?

Cat,

Congrats on the 11:25 flight in LPP at Johnson City! I would count your placing as very goodagainstsuchtop competition. After all, the person that placed just 5 seconds ahead of you is a past F1D world champion. Do you want to share some flight details?

Also, are your coaches attending the Science Olympiad Summer Workshop next week in Chicago? I’m conducting the Flight build and fly along with Dave Lindsey.

Brian T

[pumptato-cat]

Hi! Sorry for the delay(holy moly I have a lot of emails to catch up with...); I've had no internet for a week at band camp and was also sick :(

While scraps is a blast with little to risk, consider building a plane that completed with ministik rules. It is similar, and can be flown competitively at ama contests.

Ooh, thanks for the information! Do you have any favorite plans? Not sure what is best to start with, but ever since I saw Leo's(I think his HPA name is leop? Not sure) tiny ministick I've been interested. I did get some OS film from Dave Lindley so I'll be building again soon :)

Cat,

Congrats on the 11:25 flight in LPP at Johnson City! I would count your placing as very goodagainstsuchtop competition. After all, the person that placed just 5 seconds ahead of you is a past F1D world champion. Do you want to share some flight details?

Also, are your coaches attending the Science Olympiad Summer Workshop next week in Chicago? I’m conducting the Flight build and fly along with Dave Lindsey.

Brian T

Thanks :) I thought it was 11 seconds? Pretty upset that I never got to push my plane to the top of the dome but I'm pretty happy with my LPP placements. A6 though... yikes. I didn't practice much before coming to JC though so I'm not really surprised, haha!
Oh, as for flight details... I wasn't sure how to log data(I keep forgetting it because I try to memorize and then log after launch) but I did manage to get some basic details(gah I really should have better logs). Some of these might be a bit off, but they're all close enough and as far as I could tell my flights were pretty consistent and mostly depended on altitude or whether they hit anything. This LPP's very hard to build in my opinion(although others seem to find it easier) but it flies well straight off the board. Mine only needed one or two trim flights(of course with Coach Chuck's help!) and it was flying great.

rubber type and batch: March 02, 2023 Tan SS 3/32" 15 1/4" long
size(total weight and grams per inch): Never got to practice enough before coming here to the point where I could test densities. I changed the length instead(lazy haha) and I hadn't really figured out my stripper yet. I wish I could weigh it but I ended up cutting my original motor down to 1.5g to chase Coach Chuck's kids' F1M record(failed, 1 minute and 22 seconds off haha!) the morning I left, mostly because they weren't allowing official flights anymore. Oh, I should've tried for 12 minutes :(
max turns and backoff: 159 winds, 4 dewinds on 1:15
max torque: 1.1oz
launch torque: 0.44oz
didn't log turns remaining :0 got too excited...
flight time: 11:26 (I accidentally put 11:25 on the scoresheet lol)

More details and a build thread(quite outdated, I've got to post some pictures soon...) are on Hip Pocket Aero if anyone's curious!

Oh, I wish! My coaches don't seem to take SO seriously. That'd sure be nice if they would go but it's very unlikely. What's the "build and fly"? Is this for team members or coaches? Either way, that's really cool and I wish I was there...

[bjt4888]

Cat,

11:26 is very good with 1.5 g of rubber. Trying for the F1M National record was a good idea.

https://www.soinc.org/join/science-olym ... -workshops

This is the “build and fly” SO Summer Build Clinic. They’re calling it a “deep dive” into each event. I can understand if teams can’t afford the time and $’s for the Summer Institute. We’ll be building a simple airplane with about 60 coaches and then flying it to teach trimming, rubber winding and testing strategy. I’m also bringing materials to demonstrate more advanced ideas if there is an interest (rubber stripping, flaring propellers, propeller pitch testing, etc.). You’ve already made good progress on these advanced concepts.

Time to build an F1D (maybe an F1L, EZB or mini stick first).

Brian T