FAI F1D

[smartkid222]

IMO the best film is penny plane plastic from Roy White. It's probably the cheapest film out there, weighs less than superultrafilm, and the amount of film you get on one roll is rediculous.

[Brucester]

I bought the Tom Goldstein .9 micro stuff. Was hard to deal with, but worth it. The plane is now complete. pics soon.

Brucester

[SSANationalTeam1]

I bought the Tom Goldstein .9 micro stuff. Was hard to deal with, but worth it. The plane is now complete. pics soon.

Brucester

is it @ scioly today?

[WrightStuffMonster]

IMO the best film is penny plane plastic from Roy White. It's probably the cheapest film out there, weighs less than superultrafilm, and the amount of film you get on one roll is rediculous.

That is true. I was not sure if he was selling film still. I bought some Y2K film from him a while back which is really light and what alot of the pros use. The other nice thing was that he only charge me for shipping once he found I was in SO. I would really not recommend it for SO though. It much to fragile when compared to ultrafilm.

[masterhat]

I've been out of Wright Stuff for a few years (since whenever it was taken out of C division), and I was wondering what would be the best way to get myself back into indoor free flight. I live in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

My Wright Stuff planes were never that great. They all topped out at about 1:30 in a regular gym but my best was actually way overbuilt (I think it was >14 grams without the motor). But I think my building skills have improved since then but it's been a while since I've built any planes except I built a towline glider for last year's state trial event. It got first, but the flight time and craftsmanship were still pretty lacking.

[jander14indoor]

Look for a local indoor free flight club and get into AMA free flight. Lots of different events to choose from, from as simple as no-cal scale to as hard core as F1D. I don't have any contacts, but if you check the Yahoo groups indoor_construction or Free Flight Mailing List (might be FFML) and ask you should find some contacts in Chicago area.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[masterhat]

I know that this isn't related to the F1d or science olympiad, but I figured that this was the best place to put this because it is about free flight outside of scioly:

Can somebody talk about outdoor free flight (differences between that and indoor, etc.) please?

[jander14indoor]

What do you want to know about outdoor Free Flight? Have you looked at the Small Flying Arts website? Free Flight Mailing List on Yahoo?

OK, some big differences to indoor.
The airplanes are much stronger, though weight is still very important. The lightest classes are 7-10 grams, many more than 20. P-30, a very popular event, has a 40 gm minimum.
Planes use rubber to climb to maximum height, and competitors launch to catch a thermal for maximum time.
As a result, the flight pattern and trim is very different from indoor due to desire to climb to maximum height and then extend glide.
To keep them from flying away, they often use dethermalizers to end flight after a prescribed time.
There are many classes, but like indoor break down into a couple of big categories. Scale (scored on flight time and scale points) vs sport (scored on duration only). Inside sport it breaks down to AMA events (tend to be simpler planes, though not always) vs FAI (think formula 1 racing) events.
If you like scale, the places to start are no-cal, for FAC dime-scale. Simple high wing planes to start.
If you are more into duration, consider Embryo or P-30. Both very buildable and flyable events.
Investment is higher than indoor, but not crazy until you get to the very competitive FAI level where individuals planes can run over $1000 each. A good P-30 can be built for $30 from scratch, kits from $25 to $75 or so.
A good book to start with is Don Ross's Rubber Powered Model Airplanes.
The organizing body in the US is the National Free Flight Society http://freeflight.org/

Anything more specific?

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[eta150]

Does anyone know where I can find a good starting point plan for limited pennyplanes? I'm planning on building one this summer, but I don't know what kind of wood sizes, rubber sizes, plastic films, glue, etc. to use.

[leetx]

Here are a lot of good plans.

http://www.indoornews.com/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=58

I would recommend the Cesar Banks LPP. Built correctly, it can compete with any other LPP's out there.

A LPP is not too different from the SO. You can use the same film and glue. The key to all indoor models is the weight of the wood. With an LPP, you have more room to use slightly heavier wood than some other models, for example, F1D or EZB, but typically you will have to use slightly lighter wood than Wright STuff. Something on the order of 6-8# will work. The propeller will be one thing that you have to make from scratch, unlike Wright Stuff. With practice, it is very easy. When I started building planes other than SO, building the propeller was my favorite part.

Use the weight budget given on the plans so you don't severely underbuild or over build.