I'm taking on the role again as volunteer coordinator for what will be an excellent community focused design and build challenge for the Flite Test Forum Community and Flite Fest events in 2020 (but not necessarily the only one). The guidelines are heavily based on the last few years of experience and feedback from the amazing amount of fun and participation we have had.
Please share the link to this thread to everywhere you know Flite Test fans might see it. We want as many community members participating as possible to spread the fun!
2020 Flite Test Forum Community Classic to Modern Aircraft Design & Build Challenge
Summary:
Participants will design and build an electric motor driven, radio-controlled airplane model based on an existing balsa model aircraft plan, demonstrate that it is capable of controlled flight, and release the plans freely to the community. At the end of the design portion of the competition, a panel selected from the Flite Test forums will score the entries and select winners from the completed and flight-proven models posted on the forums. Additionally, in-person group activities will occur at the 2020 Flite Fest events to celebrate and demonstrate the accomplishments of the participants for those who can attend. In-person participation at a Flite Fest event is not required to participate in this challenge.
Objectives:
Part 1 - The Design-Off Rules:
1. Subject must be based on an existing balsa aircraft plan, and pictures of that plan must be shared in the build thread. This includes but is not limited to:
For ideas of where to find qualifying plans online, try these links;
Please consult the community in this thread if you have doubts about a specific plans qualifying for the challenge.
2. All designs should use electric power with motors equivalent to one of the Flite Test Power Packs, and identify which Power Pack(s) are appropriate in your plans. Exceptions for really crazy planes are allowed, but are discouraged in the scoring. This way the largest number of community members can participate with existing or easily accessible equipment. Until Flite Test makes available an EDF power pack, jet or rocket designs may use any available EDF or modify the airframe for pusher prop or prop-in-slot with no scoring penalty. Actual Estes rocket motors are acceptable if appropriate to the design, but no hand-mixed rocket motors. We want everyone to keep their fingers.
3. Scale is largely irrelevant. Build as big or small as you like, no need to remain at the same scale as the source plans
4. FT building techniques are a great foundation, but other more advanced techniques are welcome! Keep in mind that others may want to build YOUR airplane and may require additional skills to do so - be sure to provide clear build instructions for any non FT techniques used in your design.
5. To include as many pilots and teams in the challenge as we can, aircraft are encouraged to have multiple flight crew members to operate bomb drops, camera surveillance, turret functions, parasitic vehicles, etc.
6. Entries must demonstrate that they are capable of controlled flight before the Design-Off closing date to be considered for judging for the Design-Off portion of the community challenge. Only videos of the entry in flight will be considered proof of flight-worthiness.
7. Already started builds may be entered.
8. A complete set of digital plans must be available in the FT Forums Resource area by the close of the Design-Off. Vector-based formats are preferred but not required.
9. Build instructions MUST be provided through video instruction, textual write-up, or build log. Techniques different from standard Flite Test skills should be clearly explained. An excellent example can be found here: http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?36200-Baby-Bugatti-700m
10. Participants may submit more than one entry, and multiple entries for the same design from different participants are awesome - especially if they use different build or design techniques.
11. Participants in the design challenge do not need to be able to attend an in-person Flite Test event (although we hope you can!) Scoring and adjudication of the design entries will occur through and be announced via the FT forums.
Coordinator's Instructions:
Part 2 - Group Demonstration Events:
At each 2020 Flite Fest event where sufficient participants gather, several group activities will be coordinated to demonstrate airworthiness, awesomeness, craftsmanship, and team camaraderie. A community volunteer coordinator will need to be identified for each event to ensure we can pull these group challenges together.
The Briefing: A coordinated static presentation of all participating models at the flight line for community show-and-tell. We've done this in the build tent, and on the flight line - and the flight line was much more accessible to a wider spectator and pilot audience.
The Timed Flight: A coordinated flight will occur with all participating models to flood the skies with all models, operating at the edge of their speed envelope. Aircraft will take off as simultaneously as is safe and feasible, and land following a 5 minute flight. Randomly assigned spotters for each aircraft will time the flight from takeoff to landing, and closest time to exactly 5 minutes wins.
The Spot Landing: Closest landing (when the aircraft comes to a full stop) to a marker (balloon or streamer) taped on the runway wins. If performing a lawn dart or figure 9 maneuver to finish close to the target, the largest single piece of the aircraft remains will be used for landing distance measurement.
Design-off Scoring Rubric: 170 points total
Please share the link to this thread to everywhere you know Flite Test fans might see it. We want as many community members participating as possible to spread the fun!
2020 Flite Test Forum Community Classic to Modern Aircraft Design & Build Challenge
Summary:
Participants will design and build an electric motor driven, radio-controlled airplane model based on an existing balsa model aircraft plan, demonstrate that it is capable of controlled flight, and release the plans freely to the community. At the end of the design portion of the competition, a panel selected from the Flite Test forums will score the entries and select winners from the completed and flight-proven models posted on the forums. Additionally, in-person group activities will occur at the 2020 Flite Fest events to celebrate and demonstrate the accomplishments of the participants for those who can attend. In-person participation at a Flite Fest event is not required to participate in this challenge.
Objectives:
- Celebrate the history of balsa model aircraft design
- Foster interest in building foam board model aircraft from community plans
- Promote learning, research, design, and building skills as aspects of the FT community
- Compete in flying events where any level of experience can be a winner
- Engage in some friendly forum banter
Part 1 - The Design-Off Rules:
1. Subject must be based on an existing balsa aircraft plan, and pictures of that plan must be shared in the build thread. This includes but is not limited to:
- Scale / fantasy / sport balsa aircraft plans
- Plans published in magazines
- Plans published online
- Plans found in estate sales and dusty basements
- Plans from companies currently producing kits
For ideas of where to find qualifying plans online, try these links;
Please consult the community in this thread if you have doubts about a specific plans qualifying for the challenge.
2. All designs should use electric power with motors equivalent to one of the Flite Test Power Packs, and identify which Power Pack(s) are appropriate in your plans. Exceptions for really crazy planes are allowed, but are discouraged in the scoring. This way the largest number of community members can participate with existing or easily accessible equipment. Until Flite Test makes available an EDF power pack, jet or rocket designs may use any available EDF or modify the airframe for pusher prop or prop-in-slot with no scoring penalty. Actual Estes rocket motors are acceptable if appropriate to the design, but no hand-mixed rocket motors. We want everyone to keep their fingers.
3. Scale is largely irrelevant. Build as big or small as you like, no need to remain at the same scale as the source plans
4. FT building techniques are a great foundation, but other more advanced techniques are welcome! Keep in mind that others may want to build YOUR airplane and may require additional skills to do so - be sure to provide clear build instructions for any non FT techniques used in your design.
5. To include as many pilots and teams in the challenge as we can, aircraft are encouraged to have multiple flight crew members to operate bomb drops, camera surveillance, turret functions, parasitic vehicles, etc.
6. Entries must demonstrate that they are capable of controlled flight before the Design-Off closing date to be considered for judging for the Design-Off portion of the community challenge. Only videos of the entry in flight will be considered proof of flight-worthiness.
7. Already started builds may be entered.
8. A complete set of digital plans must be available in the FT Forums Resource area by the close of the Design-Off. Vector-based formats are preferred but not required.
9. Build instructions MUST be provided through video instruction, textual write-up, or build log. Techniques different from standard Flite Test skills should be clearly explained. An excellent example can be found here: http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?36200-Baby-Bugatti-700m
10. Participants may submit more than one entry, and multiple entries for the same design from different participants are awesome - especially if they use different build or design techniques.
11. Participants in the design challenge do not need to be able to attend an in-person Flite Test event (although we hope you can!) Scoring and adjudication of the design entries will occur through and be announced via the FT forums.
Coordinator's Instructions:
- Registration for the Design portion of the challenge will be by posting participant members’ FT user name, the model to be entered, and a link to the entries build thread in this main challenge thread, NOT via PM to the OP. All aspects of the design challenge are coordinated virtually through the forum: in person participation or demonstration is not required (and in fact not available).
Entry format:
Awesome Forum Member's Name
Plane Name
http://forum.flitetest.com/showthrea...AwesomeBuildThreadLink
[Insert picture of the inspirational aircraft or plans]
Build threads should be titled in the format:
FTFC20 [plane name] designed by [designer name]
With the FTFC20 shortened version of 'Flite Test Forums Challenge for 2020' in the prefix so searches and causal forum browsers are all more likely to notice these projects.
Entrants are encouraged to add why they chose this model, and link to documentation for challenge appropriateness of the design for this challenge. (Wikipedia, Janes' Planes, etc.) Links to historical confirmation should be in the build thread for scoring purposes.
- Registration for Design entries will open August 7, 2019
- The Design portion of the challenge will end on January 31st, 2020. This is to facilitate time for community members to build aircraft well in-advance of the 2020 Flite Fest events. Community members are welcome and encouraged to keep building after this, but we have to cut off the scoring at some point.
- Registration to participate in the group challenges at a particular Flite Fest Event (Ohio, Texas, Cali, etc) will open when that Flite Fest event is announced, and remain open until the event occurs.
- Design review and scoring will be completed and results posted by February 28th 2020.
- It is recommended that designers not review the rubric during the course of their project. To foster creativity and fun, review the rubric at the start, make your plan, build, and then review when nearing completion to see where you may accumulate additional points. The scoring rubric is posted below in the "spoiler" tag.
To be scored an entry must meet these 3 criteria on or before midnight January 31st, 2020:
- Flight video posted
- Plans posted
- Build instructions posted
Part 2 - Group Demonstration Events:
At each 2020 Flite Fest event where sufficient participants gather, several group activities will be coordinated to demonstrate airworthiness, awesomeness, craftsmanship, and team camaraderie. A community volunteer coordinator will need to be identified for each event to ensure we can pull these group challenges together.
The Briefing: A coordinated static presentation of all participating models at the flight line for community show-and-tell. We've done this in the build tent, and on the flight line - and the flight line was much more accessible to a wider spectator and pilot audience.
The Timed Flight: A coordinated flight will occur with all participating models to flood the skies with all models, operating at the edge of their speed envelope. Aircraft will take off as simultaneously as is safe and feasible, and land following a 5 minute flight. Randomly assigned spotters for each aircraft will time the flight from takeoff to landing, and closest time to exactly 5 minutes wins.
The Spot Landing: Closest landing (when the aircraft comes to a full stop) to a marker (balloon or streamer) taped on the runway wins. If performing a lawn dart or figure 9 maneuver to finish close to the target, the largest single piece of the aircraft remains will be used for landing distance measurement.
- All models participating in these events should be built using designs meeting the Design-off guidelines.
- Designs do not need to be completed in time for the Part 1 challenge scoring to participate in the Part 2 events.
- The participant does not need to be the designer - please build other people's awesome designs and bring them to Flite Fest!
- Registration for the in-person events at Flite Fest (Ohio/Texas/wherever) will be via posting in a specific thread created for those events, when the dates of those events are announced.
Design-off Scoring Rubric: 170 points total
Spoiler!
