2016 rules

[calgoddard]

So far I have been unable to locate the plan for Cezar's 2008 WS pusher airplane.

The excellent kit for that pusher airplane may have been manufactured and sold by Peck Polymers, before it was acquired by A2Z.

The Peck Polymers business has been purchased from A2Z and is in the process of re-opening. This is good news for all fans of rubber powered airplanes.

[calgoddard]

I uploaded photos of two different WS canard airplanes onto the Wright Stuff folder in the Image Gallery. See page 10, images 118 and 119.

There are many possible variations for the design of a WS canard ariplane.

Enjoy.

[Less_Incidence]

I would also be in favor of a 50%-area stab rule like in F1D. I think that a more generous chord combined with a looser regulation on stab area would make for much more freedom of design, so that not every single team would be flying essentially the same rectangular-wing aircraft.

[DoctaDave]

I would also be in favor of a 50%-area stab rule like in F1D. I think that a more generous chord combined with a looser regulation on stab area would make for much more freedom of design, so that not every single team would be flying essentially the same rectangular-wing aircraft.

The issue with that is that it would be difficult for the proctor to find the area of the stab or the wing if they're a non rectangular shape.

[jander14indoor]

Even a regular shape would be a challenge. Remember you have a WIDE range of experience for the ES. While I could probably trust most readers of this list to measure without breaking, I've seen way to many ES who've never touched an indoor free flight plane. Given that fact, I'd forsee many appeals of the measurements and I'm sure we'd see many broken planes.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[Less_Incidence]

That's also very true. Maybe we could have a more generous chord and span on the stab as well as the wing, so that, like with the wing, maximizing area on the stab wouldn't be the best strategy. I think WS planes would start looking like heavy, fat F1Ms.

[retired1]

There are all kinds of things that would open up the WS event. They need to be able to be rapidly, efficiently and accurately checked by Asst. ES's which needs to be simple from what I have seen.

If you open up the rules, what are you going to do to reduce the flight times. Competitors are getting better across the board and the top ones have access to great coaches. Wing and stab area is one option. Heavier min weight is another. Less rubber is another. Reduced prop diameter is a possibility.

The increased min weight this year somewhat leveled the playing field. I think that the planes should be able to meet spec with the normal poor hobbyshop balsa rather than the expensive contest grade that many of the top competitors still use because they can use larger lightweight balsa and be stronger.

Rules should allow less affluent teams to be competitive in the dozens of regional tournaments. It should be a fun event for all.

[Less_Incidence]

Dare I ask why exactly flight times have to be so severely limited? Normal indoor competitions never have a problem with having multiple official flights in the air at once, and I don't see why SciOly should either. Really I don't see what's wrong with allowing teams to build 6-minute-capable airplanes.

My (and many others') issue with this event is that Wright Stuff only becomes a race to the roof - seeing who can get closest to the ceiling - in rooms above 40' or so, rather than a competition of who flies the best and most well-trimmed plane. Granted, WS competitions are usually held in 25' gyms (Or in Colorado's case, an 18' field house with netting all over the ceiling), but this still becomes an issue at Nationals and other high-ceiling sites.

Also, another stupid suggestion for opening up the design possibilities might be a rule written like this:

The product (in cm^2) of the wing's maximum chord (in cm) and maximum span (in cm) may not be greater than 300.

This may not be quite as fast for the assistant ES to check, but it would be a good way to open up some design possibilites without drastically increasing performance.

[DoctaDave]

At nationals, the event was not a "race to the roof". I watched many teams easily get to the max height, but the issue was that their cruise times were not very long to begin with, or the plane would run out of turns early on in the descent. The issue of having multiple flights going at once are the small gyms that often are used for this event. These gyms are also commonly used for the B div. flying events which in this case is gliders. If you have 2 gliders, and 2 wright stuff planes going on at once in a single basketball court sized gym, there will be issues. This becomes an even bigger problem when a lot of these planes are not trimmed properly and have an erratic and unpredictable flight pattern. I'm not sure about you, but I would prefer shorter flight times over having to share my official flight space with 3 other people.

[Less_Incidence]

Climbing and running out of turns that quickly indicates that propeller pitches had to be ridiculously low to reach that ceiling height, and planes deadsticking at 40 feet is only a testament to not being able to have enough rubber. At least that's the way I see it.

I see your point there, but having just flown at the AMA Indoor Nats in a basketball-court-sized venue with 4 or 5 10-minute-plus flights in the air at any given time, I'd beg to differ. There wasn't even a single midair or major issue during the kids' P-18 event with 20 fliers on the floor, and needless to say most of those weren't exactly well-trimmed planes. The only collision all week that I knew of was a minor ministick tangle-up. I would have no problem flying Wright Stuff with other birds in the air as long as they excersized some common sense and were conscious enough not to launch a glider directly at my plane. Maybe other fliers have had different experiences.

I'm not trying to say that "I want longer flight times", I'm saying that "I want planes that aren't so hard to trim for high ceilings". Even in a 35' room, I couldn't keep my own plane from deadsticking around 5 feet.