Our Science Olympiad team had a disaster at its regionals.
Their two planes climbed way too quickly and after many collisions
with the roof, scoreboard, basketball backboards, one plane ended up
landing on a light fixture and the other crashed.
They had tons of flight data compiled on half motor flights. We knew
the ceiling height of the competition site and planned for launch
torque for a conservative flight on the first flight. Both flights
climbed like rockets. The experts told us it was updrafts. All our
practice data was acquired in a gym in the low 60's F. and the
competition was in the mid to high 70's F. Our team did not do any
practice flights at the competition site for two reaons. First, our
main competition did, his plane hung up on light fixture and was
damaged. So we were spooked. Second, our team was pre-occupied with
other events and didn't really have the opportunity for test flights
in the competition site, which were limited.
What's the relationship between temperature and torque/winding? If
there is a 15% differential between the temp for the test flights and
the temp for the competition, do you lower launch torque by 15%?
What a shame, our students' plane hung up on a lamp 35 feet above the
floor after three collisions and was still in cruise when it stopped
at 1:45.
Received on Sun Feb 25 2007 - 22:12:11 CET
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:44 CET