Here we go guys and gals. It has not even been a month since Flite Fest 2016 ended and there is already chatter about next year and a community "gaggle." While the Gotha gaggle was special due to its organic nature and how it evolved there have been ideas and plans made for before FF2016 even started.
Dan (Sponz), Stephen (Rasterize), and I had some good conversation (and are still having it) stemming around what to do next year. As the title of this thread implies we would like to do something a little different than "just another themed combat." We have time to plan and do something even better. The next logical progression in time is to spread our wings into the "Golden Era" of aircraft. The history is rich and the designs are plenty with some of the most beautiful designs ever conceived.
The Airplanes
First, we all agreed that over the last year some fantastic designs have come out of this community and we really want to see more of them! To keep momentum on this subject and spawn new designs we want to have a design-off, similarly to the winter build-off that I have coordinated for the last two years. There will be rules but the basic one will be designing around a full-size power pod (swappable series) and incorporation of FT building techniques. This is intentional to keep these designs accessible to less-experienced modelers and include more participants, rather than exclude them. To further demonstrate how serious we are about this, I've already designed, made plans, built a prototype, and finalized plans for a subject, all since FTFF as an investigation to boundaries to make this a fun and safe event.
The second part of this is to give Stephen subjects to provides skins for. He is not willing to make skins for every subject in the design-off but he is willing to evaluate the entries and make a reasonable assessment from there what he can reasonably do.
The Races
The Furey Cup
This challenge will focus on all-out speed in a true pylon race to the finish. Utilizing three "flappy dudes" a course will be outlined and a minimum number of laps will be established for a spotter to count as they are completed. This will be a short event with high-energy and plenty of close-calls. Mishaps are bound to happen with clipped pylons and interfering winds. Again, there will be boundaries set in a way that makes things fair. Our focus has been on power class and other considerations but we have not finalized those. Keep an eye out here for those updates as we make them.
The Bixler Trophy
This is akin to the Bendix Trophy races of the 1930s. These were endurance races to encourage safety and push boundaries of technology. You fixed-wing FPV guys can get in on this action as we would like to have FPV really be the focus here. Balancing the weight of your equipment and how far you can fly as fast as possible on a fixed low-energy pack is the challenge. In true Bixler fashion we expect to see puffed batteries and some FPV action that could be displayed at the FPV tent. Lots of options and details to work out but you get the idea.
All of this said, I will step back and let The discussion ensue. I expect Dan and Stephen to chime in with their $0.02 and also cover things that I have missed. We also included a couple of others in our offline discussion to help things progress but the community seems to be wanting something so we decided to bring it to you. To be sure, we want this to be community driven as that has been the winning recipe for fun in the past.
Dan (Sponz), Stephen (Rasterize), and I had some good conversation (and are still having it) stemming around what to do next year. As the title of this thread implies we would like to do something a little different than "just another themed combat." We have time to plan and do something even better. The next logical progression in time is to spread our wings into the "Golden Era" of aircraft. The history is rich and the designs are plenty with some of the most beautiful designs ever conceived.
The Airplanes
First, we all agreed that over the last year some fantastic designs have come out of this community and we really want to see more of them! To keep momentum on this subject and spawn new designs we want to have a design-off, similarly to the winter build-off that I have coordinated for the last two years. There will be rules but the basic one will be designing around a full-size power pod (swappable series) and incorporation of FT building techniques. This is intentional to keep these designs accessible to less-experienced modelers and include more participants, rather than exclude them. To further demonstrate how serious we are about this, I've already designed, made plans, built a prototype, and finalized plans for a subject, all since FTFF as an investigation to boundaries to make this a fun and safe event.
The second part of this is to give Stephen subjects to provides skins for. He is not willing to make skins for every subject in the design-off but he is willing to evaluate the entries and make a reasonable assessment from there what he can reasonably do.
The Races
The Furey Cup
This challenge will focus on all-out speed in a true pylon race to the finish. Utilizing three "flappy dudes" a course will be outlined and a minimum number of laps will be established for a spotter to count as they are completed. This will be a short event with high-energy and plenty of close-calls. Mishaps are bound to happen with clipped pylons and interfering winds. Again, there will be boundaries set in a way that makes things fair. Our focus has been on power class and other considerations but we have not finalized those. Keep an eye out here for those updates as we make them.
The Bixler Trophy
This is akin to the Bendix Trophy races of the 1930s. These were endurance races to encourage safety and push boundaries of technology. You fixed-wing FPV guys can get in on this action as we would like to have FPV really be the focus here. Balancing the weight of your equipment and how far you can fly as fast as possible on a fixed low-energy pack is the challenge. In true Bixler fashion we expect to see puffed batteries and some FPV action that could be displayed at the FPV tent. Lots of options and details to work out but you get the idea.
All of this said, I will step back and let The discussion ensue. I expect Dan and Stephen to chime in with their $0.02 and also cover things that I have missed. We also included a couple of others in our offline discussion to help things progress but the community seems to be wanting something so we decided to bring it to you. To be sure, we want this to be community driven as that has been the winning recipe for fun in the past.
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