The First Foam Plate Rubber Powered Airplane Contest

Last evening as part of my model airplane flying I thought I would put up some flights for sample entry in “The First Foam Plate Rubber Powered Airplane Contest”. On the scorecard you are allowed six flights but I only made four, the best three flights are counted in the score. I used the Fantastic Foam Flyer design with an orange propeller and 1/8” rubber strip.

For the first flight I wound in 500 turns, the airplane was circling too tight and as it reached the top of the climb it started a spiral dive to the ground, duration only 31 seconds. I adjusted the vertical fin to widen the turn and increased the number of winds to 600. Much better climb and the flight lasted for 48 seconds. For the next flight I increased to 700 turns but the flight duration was only slightly better at 49.52 seconds but for scoring purpose you round down to whole number which gives 49 seconds.

Even though at this time in the evening the chances of thermal air currents to increase the flight time were slim, I thought a better flight was possible. After winding to 800 turns I headed farther upwind to launch. The breeze was starting to increase, I was wondering if I should cancel the flight but no I let it go into the wind. Higher and higher it went but also downwind heading over a veterinary clinic; where was it going to land. I was so afraid it would be on the roof but instead landed in a fenced in area.

After that close call, I called it enough flying and recorded the flight times. The last flight was slightly over 1 minute, this shows up on the watch as 1:00.11. This was recorded on the scorecard under “Time on Watch” but converted to seconds for 60 seconds under “Total Seconds” column. I took a picture of my sample scorecard and it appears to be readable.

Bill Kuhl
http://www.ideas-inspire.com

Related Links

Foam Plate Postal Contest Webpage

Fantastic Foam Flyer