Flite Fest 2017 in review.

[Tench745]

This year was my first ever Flite Fest and I'm still deciding what I think about it.
There were many enjoyable aspects to it and a few, occasionally large, negatives. I think it's our job as a community to summarize both what was good and what needs improvement going forward. I'm starting this thread for that reason, so hop on in and let everyone know what you thought, good, bad, or indifferent!

One particularly large drawback I saw was radio interference/noise. The quad guys wouldn't fly on the East end of the field for fear of signal loss, my Cafe Racer went down from a signal loss, I heard tell of a crashed radian, and I heard that it was happening across brands; Spektrum, Tactic, Graupner, etc. I believe it may be related to the cell towers to the east and south of the field.
The only other major complaint I had was the poor dissemination of information. There was a schedule, but that went out the window with the rain and no one told anyone (well, no one told me anyway). The combats happened semi-randomly compared to the schedule and were often not announced with enough time to get a plane from your campsite and return if you were parked way out. The text alerts helped, but also were often sent last minute.

So what were your experiences? Chime in, I'd love to hear what everyone else thought.

 

[rcbif]

I'm sure the mud had everyone scrambling, so it's hard to say what might have happened with good weather, but...

Ya, like last year, it would have been nice if there was speakers closer to the camp sites to hear what was going on. If every generator was off, I MIGHT have been able to hear the main ones on the flight line - and I was only 10 tents of so from the event center.

Someone was flying very loud speed wing or maybe a delta one early morning around 12-1am a few nights and I was woken up a few times. Tents have no sound insulation...
Mentioned it on the Facebook group and got called everything from a party pooper to being cussed out.
Pretty sure very few were "partying" at 1am and this was just one bad apple or two, but disappointed by the lack of respect and even more so by the reaction just from bringing up the fact. I'll just bring ear plugs next year.

But enough negative! Big thanks to the volunteers who dealt with the big mud issue and still performed their duties. I'm glad we were all spared atleast two days of dry weather. It sure was nice to have the feeling of hard dirt on the flight-line again!
I preferred last years layout vs the event center layout this year, but I'm also a weirdo and like walking around a lot.
Seemed there were less vendors? Maybe weather related? Whoever the vendor was at the west end of the flight line, they had a lot of good stuff last year and I do not believe they were there this year.

 

[BridgeInspector]

The schedule of events didn't exactly go along with when things actually happened and when they changed it was a bit frustrating. I missed out on a few events and had to work around some time changes, most of the time I was able to adapt. The weather definitely alters outdoor events, so you do the best you can.

Even with that small hiccup and the mud, I still had a blast!


On the text alerts, I never received a text after the first one. I was busy volunteering when I quickly signed up for the alerts. I just now checked the one message and I didn't noticed that I also needed to reply with a 'Y' to accept texts. duh!

 

[LitterBug]

This was my first FF and had an absolute awesome time at FFE '17. I was on site from 5:30PM Wednesday night till 3PM Sunday. The Flite Test crew did the best they could to work around issues thrown at them by the weather beyond anyone's control. Everyone from the staff and the volunteers were very cooperative and accepting of ideas to help the event out. I worked as a volunteer on my designated shifts in the build tent, and helped out off my shifts as much as I could too. Learned a lot helping others work through their builds and really enjoyed the comradery of everyone I met. I don't believe in labeling people Plankers, choppers, or Quad fliers. I helped everyone I could because we are all one in this great Flite Test community, and I fly it all.

I personally never had an issue with control signal loss while flying any of my Quads, Hex, or Tricopters on the east end of the field. I'm flying with a Spektrum DX8(V1) and DSMX 11ms protocol. Most of my RXes have diversity and was flying both LemonRX and Spektrum receivers. I did a handful of LOS quad flights just out from the build tents, with protected prop frames, mostly after dark, and with lights for visibility. Also Flew one of the Owls with the big spider in the Combat 12:30PM sunday. Flew my Owl frame with a non-diversity RX covered by a big spider at the center and east end of the field with no problems too. Only real RF issue I had was with FPV signals getting stomped on by people powering up VTXes off the flight line, not in the FPV areas, and without checking that the channel was clear BEFORE powering up. Anticipated this because it is difficult to manage at such a large event, so I focused more on LOS flight. Also kept my VTXes unplugged at all times except when getting ready to fly FPV. Made sure we unplugged any VTXes on builds/repairs that I was helping work on in the build tents too. Did get a handful of FPV flights early one morning with my Hellbender, AWK210, and Krieger frames. I wanted to test setting up the diversity on my goggles with two directional patch filters pointed tword the field, but never got around to it. Think that might have helped as I think that my Goggles were switching to the Omni antenna when I would get far enough away that the Omni signal from the stomper was stronger than my signal hitting the patch. The Race tent at the west side of the field had diversity with dual direcitonal antennas configured like that, but never got a chance to fly at that end of the field.

I spent the majority of time in the build tents where the PA was easily heard. The ends of the field did not have any PA coverage and this was a big drawback. This was discussed in one of the volunteer meetings. Sounds like they are looking into getting a licensed low power FM transmitter setup to alleviate this in the future. They did have some TXT and email notification options in place, but I did not use either.

Cheers!
LitterBug

 

[cranialrectosis]

Video or it didn't happen.

 

[LitterBug]

Video or it didn't happen.

Lighted, Protected prop Owl Frame, with spider, and non-diveristy DSMX 11ms LemonRX. Happened LIVE on TJs YouCast. Link below should pop you in where the spider came out Saturday night. Posted as a link, since the embedded video does not do the redirect to the timestamp correctly.

https://youtu.be/DrA8P47Lv28?t=2592

Cheers!
LitterBug

 

[cranialrectosis]

Watching now!

Thanks, LB!

 

[Corbarrad]

I had a great time, like every year so far, maybe I'm just easy to please.
I attended from wed through sun and apart from my wish to join a night fly I got most every box ticked on my flite fest list.

Meeting friends, old and new, chatting around the campfire building and flying together is what it's alll about for me. Shame I didn't get to talk to Josh for some reason, only saw him off in the distance a few times, but that's probably beause I didn't get around all that well because of an inflamed ankle, which also kept me from signing up for volunteer shifts. I tended to stay put once I'd achieved a sitting position somewhere.

Admitted, I was a little annoyed by the all-night generator noise and the midnight wing shenanigans, but I came prepared for a camping trip in a noisy environment, so I slept pretty well. (Or maybe I just out-snored the noise in which case my apologies go to my tent neighbours...)

The weather during the first two days was unfortunate and probably threw off a lot of the scheduling, but of course there is nothing anyone could have done about the weather or the muddy conditions. I sure hope the Furey runway didn't get damaged by inconsiderate drivers. We all need to remember we were guests on private property.

Personally, I didn't experience any RX problems either, I used a full range spektrum DSM-X receiver, no satelites for added diversitiy, though I was only flying during off-times and in the last combat on sunday. I know it sucks to lose a model due to interference, but I remember the time of AM/FM radios were a gathering of thi size would have been impossible altogether.

In closing, I still very much enjoyed my third flite fest although a little more consideration for each others needs would have gone a long way to making it a great experience for even more of those in attendance.

 

[Tench745]

My perception of the interference issue was that it was very localized, and intermittent. There was one section on the east end of the field that if anyone flew through it, it would take you out until you came out the other side of that zone. It was bizarre. The loss of my racer was probably my fault, as I was flying something I really cared about with an OrangeRX. However, I have the same RX in my wing and it never had a problem.
I was very impressed by how smoothly everything went.
It was hard to hear announcements in combat/on the flight line at the start, but eventually they turned a speaker around to face the pilots, which helped.
I thought the build tents were really cool and having them right next to the main flight line was a great convenience. They were also very crowded, partly with people building, but a lot of the tables just had a bunch of stuff on them with no one building. A certain amount of "policing" of this in future may be helpful as long as it doesn't become overbearing.

Sunday morning I woke up to a wing screaming around the sky at about 6am on the south side of the camping. I'm not sure if I was more annoyed by the noise or the fact that they weren't flying on the flight line. Personal problem: the screaming mini-quad motors on FT arrows, and mini quads, and whatever else, started to really wear on me by the end. I was so happy when something big was flying instead.

It's interesting how different some people's experiences were. Please keep going.
What did FF do right, what can they improve?

 

[LitterBug]

There should have been no flying behind the flight line at all. There was a H-U-G-E flight line with plenty of free space. The volunteers were actively asking people to move over to the flight line if they spotted any flying in other areas. I'd recommend that any participant at the event politely do the same or ask a volunteer to do it if they are not comfortable doing it themselves. It's not just a nuisance, it can be a major safety issue. That includes Tiny Whoops in the build tents and camping areas.

 

[jakrabit]

Rain aside (never had an issue with mud conditions... part of the risk of going to these events), I'm somewhat disenchanted with the lack of logic.

1. We showed up Thursday morning, and were turned back to the football field to take the "Shuttle"... which was a school bus, with barely enough room to sit, an almost no room to bring anything. It happens, but the fact that they dropped us off on the West side of the field, and we had to walk clear to the East side (through the muck/mud) to register.

2. Registration Badges... I registered back in April. They had a rough estimate of at least the MINIMUM number of badges... and yet... they were out. The response when asked "Should have them tomorrow". all through the event. Those badges were a big part of the experience (souvenir of attending the event). Gawd awful wrist bands were issued. Seriously? Then, Saturday, a notification went out that they understood the badges were a big part and would work to make it right... that's the ONLY communication about it...

2a. No AMA proof required... which is scary at an AMA sanctioned event. Makes me wonder... Last year, before i got my pilot card, i had to show my AMA card. this year, they didn't even know what i was talking about when i started to take my card out of my wallet.

3. Scheduled Events - would have preferred they at least TRY to stick to a schedule during the day.

5. Speakers only in the middle... can't hear squat for announcements unless your right next to the build tent...

6. Build Tent - Seriously? no chance to actually BUILD something, as everybody hauls all their stuff in and ties up entire tables to... sit.

7. Garbage cans - where were they? last year they were spread out and conveniently located. What happened this year? I mean, seriously... no garbage cans around the Food vendors either.

I was glad to see the FFE t-shirts were reasonably priced this year. Last year's prices were ridiculous.

Dead spots - that's just part of the risk. I had my Adagio go down last year in a dead spot... meh, life goes on. repair and fly. Can't complain about something they don't have control over...

Overall, i had a great time. it was a rough start, and issues should have been avoided by fore-planning, and some attention to detail.

It almost seemed like the minds that went into the previous years weren't involved in the planning for this year.

 

[Flite Risk]

My first flite fest, only 349 days till FFe 2018 !! not that I am counting... ;-{}
Loved it, the welcoming helpful nature of the guests, volenteers, staff and crew.

Everyone I interacted with was so nice, I cant wait to volunteer again next year, in hind sight the hobby was just the reason for so many wonderful people to get together.

I feel bad for Mr and Ms. Furry their property took a beating.
I do wish people respected the Furry property better.
For the love of God stay off the runway !!!!!. . . . . . . . . . there may or may not be a reason YOU ARE THE ONLY CAR ON THE RUNWAY.
We should all send them thank you cards.
THANK YOU John and Diane

-Chris From Delaware

 

[BridgeInspector]

2. Registration Badges... I registered back in April. They had a rough estimate of at least the MINIMUM number of badges... and yet... they were out. The response when asked "Should have them tomorrow". all through the event. Those badges were a big part of the experience (souvenir of attending the event). Gawd awful wrist bands were issued. Seriously? Then, Saturday, a notification went out that they understood the badges were a big part and would work to make it right... that's the ONLY communication about it...

From Facebook on 7/19/17 @ 3:15p:
Pilot Badges are in!! If you registered as a pilot and missed out on getting a Pilot Badge at Flite Fest East, please send us your name and address to festival@flitetest.com and we will send you one! Thank you for making the event so successful! #FFE17 #flitefest #flitetest

 

[Timmy P]

My main complaint was upon first arrival.. We go there at 9pm on Wed night. A "Security" guy told us registration was closed for the night and we had to park in "Detention" for the night. Being someone that sleeps in my mini van.. Its unloading everything to do so.. So I was NOT going to set up camp twice. I explained this and "security" told me I got an email saying that registration would close at 8pm. I said It has done the same past 3 years but that doesn't mean camp is closed for entry. I told him he was putting me in a situation to be insubordinate and I was going into that camp. So we parked.... Walked around.. Found a new way in, along with more than ample camp sites left. So we had to sneak in behind this guys back lol.. We go to registration in the morning and there is no talk of assigned spots or numbers or anything the security guy was threatening us with. Folks in the registration tent were happy to hear that we had found a spot lol...
Also The past 2 years on the vendor list has been a taco truck.. Where the hell is this damn taco truck been? I Want Tacos!!!!
And as for radio glitches.. 4 years at FF I have never had a hickup. Or anytime period with my Spektrum Dx6i and whatever spektrum transmiter I can find locally, mostly 4 channel. But my friend Ben that always comes with me, He has a Dx9 and has had issues the last 3 years. This year he had 1 quick glitch and 2 complete fails. Right into the ground. 2 different planes and Tx's
I also have suggestion for the announcements. Maybe they could tap in a broadcaster. send out an FM signal we could tune our stereos to... Or have scanners like Nascar events. using either of those methods could provide multiple channels for Flight line and fpv Racing announcements... I want to here the full PA from my camp site. That would be best thing ever.



What I loved this year was there were more demos than last year. I liked the FLEX demo and the ParaGliders were frickin crazy! That was awesome.. I would like to see big named pilots also. The pros really make you say wow.. Like Jace and Joe from previous years. I like some loud gassers smoking the place out. That really amps everyone up.
The layout was cool.. I did miss the picnic tables by the food vendors, it created a food court for people to sit and mingle.. I liked Stephan as the MC.. He did a great job on the mic. Keeping everyone Hyped up.. Hes got good energy. And hes just a cool dude.. I liked that the flight line was farther away from the spectator line.. Added safety and room to flight check without being right on the line with no eyes in the sky.. I liked the late night events.. The Tiny Woop party was pretty interesting. And along with the band playing, and later joining the Fire for an unplugged set. I like that vibe. And build tents were kept powered up until real late saturday night. The FT Store was quite impressive, with glass doors and blown air conditioning lol. I just love how much it has grown.. And being there to see every step of it. And to see everyone improving their designing/building. Its great that we can share so much with each other that we as a whole just improve. Keep raising the bar everyone!

 

[BankandYank]

My First Flite Fest!

First I want to say, Thank you to everyone involved and committed to pulling off an event this large. Not only the long event layout but also handling the number of people that come to enjoy all the RC greatness is a monumental challenge. So again I say thank you.

I also really love Flite Test and feel compelled to offer my first time experiences good and bad. First I would like to say FFE gave my son and me some firsts, like night flying and combat. My son now has a "Stan the Man" killer. These experiences were great and we now share some great memories. Another awesome moment was meeting "Crash" Hancock. That was awesome and I'm sure I came across as some weirdo freaky fan. Still great! We flew wings for the first time (Arrows). And last but not least any time I get to fly with my son is simply awesome.

I enjoyed the vendors and Matt Anderson from Horizon was very helpful with my Timber. Thanks Matt.

Other entries above have beat down a lot of the negative issues we also experience, such as brown outs, scheduling and registration. I agree those were troubling. However the one issue that bothered me the most was a lack of concern my son and I experienced concerning the "FT Simple Cub" build. First I took a long lunch from work the day registration for the build opened and was waiting online because, I knew it would sell out fast with only 50 spots. My son really wanted to attend the build and I was very pleased when I registered both of us. The build was scheduled for Friday at 1pm. My son and I went to show central (around 11:30am) to find where we were to go at 1pm. To our amazement we found out the build schedule start time was moved to 10am and was just about over. I asked the people running the build about why the schedule change and why no announcement. They said there was an announcement but only over the PA. We never heard it. He said there was talk about a makeup build because they knew other people were missing too, but he didn't know when. We went to the registration tent. This is where the disappointment really starts to set in. We asked the people working registration. They had know Idea what I was talking about. This is the disappointing part, They didn't seem to care to look into it for us and find out. We then bumped into Austin not to far away from registration (HAY!!) All questions answered right? Well it didn't end up that way. Austin told us there was talk about a 4:30 makeup on Saturday. Wait and there will be text. Great! I have been getting texts and all seemed well. Saturday comes and its about 3pm and no texts. Thought this was odd. We headed back down to show central to find out what was going on about the makeup build. My son actually bumped into Josh Bixler. He told my son (this is important) on Saturday afternoon at about 3:15 to wait for the text message. We walked around a little more and found Alex at the PA tent. We asked him. He had no knowledge of anything related to the cub build. Now the one person I want to commend highly is Stephen. He overheard us talking to Alex and jumped into help. Get this, after the people presenting the build, the people running registration, Austin, Josh and Alex, Stephen was the only person that took the extra step to find out what was going on with the build and didn't tell us to wait for a text message. Stephen thank you! He got Michael Finley and Eddie Black to come down and talk with me. Again Stephen thank you. However the info I received was disappointing. Eddie said the makeup build was conducted at 4:30 but on Friday not Saturday. Why would Austin tell me Saturday? Why would Josh tell my son to wait for a text after the makeup build was over? Eddie said he didn't know why it was reschedued in the first place. Why wouldn't Austin, Josh and Alex not know that? Why didn't they call me? After all I registered for the build when I paid my money. There was never a text on Friday about the 4:30 makeup build. The lack of shared communication and helpfulness was my negative take away. From what I have come to learn about Flite Test over the years, is FT is about memories, community and fellowship. I don't feel the spirit of what FT was founded on was demonstrated here. Eddie did get to us our speed build kits and power packs and my son and I will build them at home.

Guys, I know that was heavy. but its the truth. As leaders of the community you guys have to be in the know and have efficient ways of communicating info quickly through the ranks. What good is a "go to" representative if they don't know or in some cases don't put forth any effort to find out what you are asking them for.

I love Flite Test and that is partly the reason why I am writing. Just like the creator of this tread said. I didn't even know if I wanted to do this on this forum format. I would have preferred to email Austin directly. I just don't have his email.

FT team as I started with I don't want to take anything away from the monumental challenge you took on. Thanks for doing it. I read all the above and these folks are making good points. Points worthy of taking into account for future events and making the better.

 

[PsyBorg]

Bankandyank, Do not feel bad about your experiences mate. Letting people know here this year will only help make it better next year. I am not nor do not want to make excuses but the bad weather the first two days threw EVERYTHING off. I worked with the volunteers and many jobs and things getting rearranged were getting delegated to other people who normally would not have had to deal with things as the higher in the chain of command were busy trying to keep people safe, keep people moving and get as many as could onto the property without totally destroying property or vehicles. MANY plans fell thru specially the first day and a half and I am sure there were more then a few things that kind of fell thru the cracks in that crazy struggle to get things semi normal.

On that note I want to address the Volunteers. Andre Thank you for allowing me to be part of that and what an amazing job you did coordinating all of us to be able to get things back in shape as quick as we did as the weather started to break and we were able to fix and rearrange things for the two perfect days we had Saturday and Sunday. Thanks to all the other volunteers I worked with as you all bent over backwards to not only do your shifts but step up on your own time to continue to get the property in shape and help as many people as you all could.

I did not get to fly hardly at all as I was more involved with helping and meeting as many people as I possibly could. After all this is about making memories. I got the chance to make one of the best ever memories. Everyone that comes to FFE wants to meet the man, Josh Bixler. I got that pleasure on several occasions over the course of FFE. The one that sticks out and will be with me forever is Josh taking time to check out the Gremlin I built when I told him I had worked on settings that would allow for 3s flight indoors and I dared him to fly it in one of the tents. Well he was having fun and said it was set up nice and I guess we were yakkin too much as he got too close to the Flugtag build and flew around it to avoid hitting it. When he did so he flew around it and I was in the way between the build and where Josh had went to avoid it and it flew into me. Josh hit me with my own Gremlin.. Cant get a better memory then that huh.

The only other thing that sticks out and quite sadly this I think at this point is something that will need to be addressed. As much as a family event as Flite Fest is I think not everyone coming now is part OF the Flite Test Family. I learned of two major items that grew legs and went home with someone other then the original owner. Sadly someone had a set of Fatsharks walk away and another kid had a baby tri copter make its way off the premises to a new home. Seeing people leave their gear out and people swapping tools to help others and all that getting returned simply amazed me. I was told that's how it has been from the start. Every tool I loaned out made its way back to me. All of the things I left at the area I was working as I helped others was never touched. It is just sad to know that two people had things disappear after all that.

All in All Flite Fest was one of the best experiences I have had with large crowds like were there EVER. No one was rude, no one was pushy, No foul language constantly and everyone was extremely friendly and willing to take some time to meet you and talk a bit. It really is more of a family reunion then an event.

 

[jakrabit]

From Facebook on 7/19/17 @ 3:15p:
Pilot Badges are in!! If you registered as a pilot and missed out on getting a Pilot Badge at Flite Fest East, please send us your name and address to festival@flitetest.com and we will send you one! Thank you for making the event so successful! #FFE17 #flitefest #flitetest

That's all well and good... but here's the rub:

I have a couple friends that will seek out certain FT Members to get them to sign the badges while at Flite Fest. Doesn't look like that's going to happen this year.

 

[lrussi750]

That's all well and good... but here's the rub:

I have a couple friends that will seek out certain FT Members to get them to sign the badges while at Flite Fest. Doesn't look like that's going to happen this year.

When you send your email for the badge ask for the autographs, you just might get them. Never hurts to ask!

 

[jakrabit]

When you send your email for the badge ask for the autographs, you just might get them. Never hurts to ask!

You're missing the point.

 

[lrussi750]

You're missing the point.

I'm not missing anything. I agree with a lot of the points made above. I've been to all 4 FliteFests in Ohio and while I had a blast all 4 years there was something really off with this one. But what you're going to find on this forum is people trying to help and that's all I was doing by saying ask for the autographs. If you want to vent directly to Flite Test you can do so very easily, everyone's email address is their first name @filtetest.com. The only way things can get better is if they hear from the community member directly.