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