TSA Flight Challenge

[jetmex]

My son is going to the TSA Nationals in Denver in a few weeks and will be competing in the flight challenge competition. The models are basically indoor catapult launch gliders; the event is a duration contest. The kids fabricate the gliders from these kits:

http://www.midwestproducts.com/item_detail.asp?item_id=500

I've been doing RC for a long time, but I'm completely lost when it comes to free flight type events. If any of you have any setup tips or tricks that you've used and wouldn't mind passing on, I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks! :D

[eflightray]

Having a look at the Midwest glider, there doesn't seem to be much there to play with :D

Is this sort of the rules ? - Tech Glider System (.pdf file) (http://www.rocklin.k12.ca.us/staff/dfrank/aero/glider.pdf)

If it was me I would get some very light balsa and start experimenting.

Weight would get you the height, (depending on the rubber band), and also speed if the model is efficient.

Where as light weight could get you a lower sink rate, but may limit the height it can achieve to start with.

Looks like a good competition, make you scratch your head and think a lot.

[fhhuber506771]

Catapult launch sheet balsa gliders... 3 rules:

keep it light.
keep it light.
keep it light.

Its better to move the wing to achieve CG than to add ballast.
The sink rate penalty due to added weight is larger than the height gain.

The balsa sheet wings guarantee you have enough weight to get decent height.

Sandpaper is your friend.

[eflightray]

I have, (had? :rolleyes: ), a friend who was competition mad, he always had to win.

Back a work we used to fly free flight indoor models during our lunch break in an empty part of the factory.

He always won the rubber powered competitions, he would use micro-film where we were using tissue covering, he would buy quality rubber, we used rubber bands.

I'm getting round to it :D

Anyway, we had a glider competition on a fixed wing size, and catapult launched just like this thread.

He won it with a sheet of balsa of the correct dimensions.

We made gliders that glided.

He catapulted the sheet of balsa, (wing tip forwards), as high as possible. It then went into an 'auto-rotate', spinning over and over and took longer than anyones glider to reach the floor.

He won again, and of course the rules didn't state that it had to look like a plane of fly like one.

Sorry for the digression, but I just remembered what we used to get up to, some 20 yeras ago.