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FAQ's
Posted: October 8th, 2021, 11:49 am
by coachchuckaahs
Important FAQ's are being posted for WS and EWS.
These FAQ's, and any rule changes, are considered official, and should be printed along with the rules and kept handy when competing.
FAQ's for EWS can be seen at
https://www.soinc.org/electric-wright-stuff
Coach Chuck
Re: FAQ's
Posted: October 12th, 2021, 1:31 pm
by knightmoves
coachchuckaahs wrote: ↑October 8th, 2021, 11:49 am
Important FAQ's are being posted for WS and EWS.
These FAQ's, and any rule changes, are considered official, and should be printed along with the rules and kept handy when competing.
In particular, note the aggressive (and IMO absurd) all-or-nothing application of the 10% penalty. You can submit a wonderfully-useful flight log that scrupulously records all your efforts to tune and improve your plane, but if you have the temerity to specify the thickness of the balsa sheet from which you cut your plane's body in fractions of an inch the way you bought it, rather than in mm, then you'll be fined 10%.
This is just wrong. It's not just an example of SO's metric obsession - it's actively harmful. The purpose of a bill of materials is to enable you to build another one. To meet that need, the way the materials are described should match the way that the stores describe them, and for balsa in the US, that's thickness in fractions of an inch.
Re: FAQ's
Posted: December 1st, 2021, 8:03 pm
by jgrischow1
knightmoves wrote: ↑October 12th, 2021, 1:31 pm
coachchuckaahs wrote: ↑October 8th, 2021, 11:49 am
Important FAQ's are being posted for WS and EWS.
These FAQ's, and any rule changes, are considered official, and should be printed along with the rules and kept handy when competing.
In particular, note the aggressive (and IMO absurd) all-or-nothing application of the 10% penalty. You can submit a wonderfully-useful flight log that scrupulously records all your efforts to tune and improve your plane, but if you have the temerity to specify the thickness of the balsa sheet from which you cut your plane's body in fractions of an inch the way you bought it, rather than in mm, then you'll be fined 10%.
This is just wrong. It's not just an example of SO's metric obsession - it's actively harmful. The purpose of a bill of materials is to enable you to build another one. To meet that need, the way the materials are described should match the way that the stores describe them, and for balsa in the US, that's thickness in fractions of an inch.
Agree with the gist of this post. I would note, however, that the rules don't specify you must list the plane's measurements in the flight log (at least as I interpret them.) It just says materials and diagram and then it says all numerical values must have metric units, but it doesn't say what numerical values need to be included. Later it says some of the required parameters include estimated or measured altitude...I would love to know what percentage of logs say 7 meters instead of 23 feet or whatever. I'm guessing it will be way under 50%, at least at the beginning of the season.
Edited to add...should have read other posts in this forum...Chuck already addressed this.
Re: FAQ's
Posted: December 2nd, 2021, 8:24 am
by BigZ
jgrischow1 wrote: ↑December 1st, 2021, 8:03 pm
knightmoves wrote: ↑October 12th, 2021, 1:31 pm
coachchuckaahs wrote: ↑October 8th, 2021, 11:49 am
Important FAQ's are being posted for WS and EWS.
These FAQ's, and any rule changes, are considered official, and should be printed along with the rules and kept handy when competing.
In particular, note the aggressive (and IMO absurd) all-or-nothing application of the 10% penalty. You can submit a wonderfully-useful flight log that scrupulously records all your efforts to tune and improve your plane, but if you have the temerity to specify the thickness of the balsa sheet from which you cut your plane's body in fractions of an inch the way you bought it, rather than in mm, then you'll be fined 10%.
This is just wrong. It's not just an example of SO's metric obsession - it's actively harmful. The purpose of a bill of materials is to enable you to build another one. To meet that need, the way the materials are described should match the way that the stores describe them, and for balsa in the US, that's thickness in fractions of an inch.
Agree with the gist of this post. I would note, however, that the rules don't specify you must list the plane's measurements in the flight log (at least as I interpret them.) It just says materials and diagram and then it says all numerical values must have metric units, but it doesn't say what numerical values need to be included. Later it says some of the required parameters include estimated or measured altitude...I would love to know what percentage of logs say 7 meters instead of 23 feet or whatever. I'm guessing it will be way under 50%, at least at the beginning of the season.
Edited to add...should have read other posts in this forum...Chuck already addressed this.
Hello. I agree with everything here, but also want to add on that you need to specify the measurements of the plane when recording a video for a satellite tournament. One of my team members accidentally used inches instead of cm when measuring his plane and got docked for some points. From now on, we called him "Inch." I agree that the whole obsession about using metric instead of imperial is kinda detrimental to the whole scioly experience because, come on, we are in America! I know, the quote and quote "standard' unit of measurement for science is metric, but most of us have grown up using imperial units and the change can be kinda confusing. Just try not to mess up, and good luck.