Future Aviation Events

[chalker7]

Heheh! I'll be excited to work in another balsa building flight event next year. Helicopter was a lot of stress, but I learned much about balsa and flight in general.

Chalker, if I were to fly balsa outdoors in the hot, humid area of Houston, what should I beware of? What are the main differentces between flying outside vs. inside? There aren't a lot of large open indoor areas where I live, but there are open fields aplenty. I can't wait to build my first launch glider!

The primary difference between indoor and outdoors is that flying outside introduces a lot of extra variables. WInd and thermals can throw your glider about, so you need to build something a bit heavier that won't be affected by those. However, if you're smart about when you try and fly you can get away with lighter indoor gliders outside. In particular, the air is almost always the calmest at sunrise and sunset, just be careful about breaking your glider!

[wlsguy]

<SNIP>Nothing is 100% final until you see a rules manual.

This comes up every year at about this time, "What are next years rules so I can get started now?"
Let me suggest, it doesn't really matter ....Just build and fly!

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

And, just in case you don't believe Jeff, we have been following this practice for years with great results

Ohio State Results:
2009 Wright Stuff - 2nd
2010 Wright Stuff - 1st
2011 Helicopters - 2nd (missed 1st by less than a second)
2012 Helicopters - 1st
Elastic Glider (Trial) - 2nd (missed 1st by 0.7 seconds)

[science8]

I will just build over the summer thanks. What was your time for that 2nd place glider?

[wlsguy]

The time was in the 11 second range per flight. Pretty sad because practice flights were above 16 seconds.
I'm sure these times will seem like a beginner by next year.

[twototwenty]

How high was the ceiling at nationals?

[chalker7]

How high was the ceiling at nationals?

27'
http://www.scienceolympiad2012.com/tour ... -glider-c/

[fozendog]

When the website said the length and width of the gym was 120′x107′ I thought it was talking about the whole gym and not half of it... This was an issue for my team because the people running our glider sometimes hit the other people in the storm the castle area.

[DLiu]

Does anyone know where we can get carbon fiber for gliders?

[twototwenty]

Generally, the best place to get carbon fiber is online, but if you are lucky, there might be a craft shop in your area (which you could find online), and you wouldn't have to pay for shipping from a local store.

[thsom]

My glider still nose dives? what do I do?!
Here's how it is:
My glider is flying well when I throw it by hand at eye level and glides smoothly. However, the second i launch the glider it climbs up well and peaks but then quickly nose dives without catching air... What's the cause for this? The design is simple, flat wing, not bends or anything (sheet-like) and a tail like such: _I_ .
The flying pattern is this confusing to me...