Free Flight Indoor - 2011/04

The 2011 Science Olympiad program
Free Flight Indoor John Kagan
[[email protected]]
The EAA AirVenture Museum (Oshkosh WI) will clear some
aircraft out of the Eagle Hangar to make room for its first AMA
Indoor FF contest, which will take place April 1. Plan to attend!
Above: Parker Tyson, the 2010 Junior
Bronze Medalist, will return to vie for a spot
on the next World Championships team.
He needs four others to join him to help
ensure team funding. Know any Science
Olympiad hotshots? Hood photo.
Right: The Limited Pennyplane Pro-Am will
be back by popular demand at the 2011
Indoor FF Nats. R. Schneider got his start
last year. That could be you launching your
own Limited Pennyplane this year. Hood
photo.
SCIENCE OLYMPIAD 2011: The AMA
is a proud sponsor of the Science
Olympiad (SO), which is an educational
program for elementary schools, middle
schools, and high schools. Per the Web
site:
“Science Olympiad is an international
non-profit organization devoted to
improving the quality of science
education, increasing student interest in
science and providing recognition for
outstanding achievement in science
education by both students and teachers.”
The program includes a competition
involving a large variety of science
events, including a few that are directly
related to Indoor FF. The current cycle
features Helicopter for division C (grades
9-12) and a trial event for capacitorpowered
monoplanes. (Rubber-powered
airplanes are “rotated out” for the time
being, but are expected to return.)
AMA members Chuck Marcos and
Larry Michalowski masterminded the
capacitor airplanes. Chuck designed the
airframe parameters, and he reports:
Also included in this column:
• Limited Pennyplane Pro-Am redux
• AirVenture Museum Indoor FF
contest
• NFFS membership offer
• 2012 F1D Team Selection Program
• Hip Pocket Aeronautics F1D build
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128 MODEL AVIATION
time in one of the
best sites should
consider heading to
Johnson City,
Tennessee, May 25-
29, 2011, for the
AMA Indoor FF
Nats and National Free Flight Society
(NFFS) US Indoor Championship.
Limited Pennyplane Pro-Am Redux: Along
with sessions for the SO events, the Indoor
FF Nats will again feature the Limited
Pennyplane Pro-Am.
Back by popular demand, this class pairs
newcomers with experienced fliers. The
Ams receive handcrafted competition
models to keep, courtesy of their Pro
partners. The Am must wind and launch, but
the Pro can tweak, tune, encourage, and
advise.
The Pro-Am is a great way for SO pilots,
and anyone else who is interested in Indoor
FF, to get into AMA Duration events. Skip
the usual barriers to entry (building a model,
finding good rubber, collecting support
equipment, finding someone to teach you
the nuances, etc.) and get directly to the
thrills of competition flying. These models
are capable of flights pushing a quarter of an
hour!
Registration is $10, and the event will
run during the Pennyplane sessions in the
afternoon and in the evening on Saturday
May 28.
See the AMA Web site for Indoor FF
Nats information, and contact me at the email
address in the column header to register
for the Pro-Am. Registration must be done
in advance, to ensure that the Pros have
enough time to construct their models.
Previous Ams are welcome to return. If
you’ve built your own Limited Pennyplane
“Larry is an
Electrical Engineer
and was responsible
for obtaining and
evaluating the
power train. The
capacitors are
available from
NooElec, formerly
known as
Noodlehead
Electronics. They
have been most
helpful in providing
specs and keeping
the capacitor listing
on their eBay
account.
“Tim Warren
drew the plans from
a rough sketch that I
provided. The
Science Olympiad
has scheduled
Wright Stuff
Capacitor as a Trial event for the National
Finals in Madison, WI in May 2011.”
In addition to developing the scientific
leaders of our future, SO is one of the best
things that has ever happened to our corner
of the modeling world. With more than 2
million students participating, an
unprecedented number of people are getting
firsthand exposure to the joys and
challenges of FF.
Take a look at the SO Web site (the
address is in the “Sources” list at the end of
this column) to learn if any of your local
schools participate. Share your knowledge
and enthusiasm, and see what kids of the
video game generation are capable of doing.
SO can often use mentors to guide
development and volunteers to help run
competitions.
If your schools aren’t involved, take the
reigns and get a team started. The SO Web
site tells you how.
SO participants (and anyone else, for
that matter) who are looking for more flying
Science Olympiad Division C competitors get to fly helicopters
in the current cycle. This is Roy White’s quad-blade design.
White photo.
The 2012 F1D Team Selection Program is underway,
culminating in the Finals later this year. Help ensure the team’s
funding by participating. Zaluska photo.
Check out Australian Tim Hayward-
Brown’s F1D build online, to see, stepby-
step, how he constructed this gem.
Chuck Markos and Larry
Michalowski have created a
new Science Olympiad trial
event for capacitor-powered
monoplanes. There’s even a
bonus for carrying a penny
payload. Fred Rash’s version is
shown. Rash photo.
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April 2011 129
and have achieved at least a 10-minute flight,
join the Pro ranks and help bring a new Am
into the fold.
If not, be sure to bring your Pro-Am
model from the first time; Limited
Pennyplane donations are limited to first-time
participants. Your Pro can help with any
repairs that might be needed.
EAA Family Flightfest Contest: The EAA is
hosting an inaugural AMA Indoor FF contest
this year in conjunction with its Family
Flightfest, which will take place April 1-3
inside the Eagle Hangar at the AirVenture
Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Enjoy fun-flying with participants of the
annual EAA Family Flightfest on Saturday
and Sunday. Show off your favorite
demonstration models and help a kid (or
parent) get the most out of his or her free
Guillow’s glider. On Friday and Saturday
afternoon/evening, you can break out the
good stuff and put in some serious
competition flights.
All Indoor FF events are welcome, with
an emphasis on Hand-Launched Glider/
Catapult-Launched Glider, Limited
Pennyplane, EZB, F1L, and MiniStick.
Heavier models fly early and light models
later. The exact schedule will be determined
once people register and the events that they
plan to fly are known.
And as if any chance to fly Indoor FF
isn’t enticing enough, the museum features
more than 250 historic airplanes, five movie
theaters, and the KidVenture interactive
gallery for children of all ages. It’s airplane
overload for the aviation enthusiast.
A $10 entry fee includes the whole
weekend of flying and museum admission.
Pre-registration and an AMA membership
are required. You can get an entry form and
contest flyer by visiting the Web site I’ve
listed at the end of the column.
NFFS Membership Offer: Gene Ulm,
public relations chairman of the NFFS, sent
along the following announcement.
“Not a member of NFFS? Announcing a
special offer for new members: two years for
half price!
“Free flighter Roy Hanson has made a
generous offer: He thinks so much of the
NFFS and its publication, the NFFS Free
Flight Digest, that he is paying out of his own
pocket half the cost of every new member
who signs up for two years. $29 gets you two
years if you are 19 or older; $9 if you are
younger. Non-U.S. members pay just $37.50
for two years.
“The Free Flight Digest contains at least
40 pages, delivered six times a year. Each
issue is crammed with Free Flight how-to,
plans, contest reports, photography and much
more. Digest covers every aspect of Free
Flight: AMA, Indoor, FAI, FAC, SAM,
Nostalgia—the works.
“If you are a former member who has
let their membership lapse for a year or
more, now is your chance to re-up for half
price. To make it easy, you can even hit
the link below and use your credit card.
“Founded in 1967 to ‘preserve, enhance
and promote the art, sport and hobby of Free
Flight model aviation in all its forms’, the
non-profit 501(c)3 National Free Flight
Society is the largest Free Flight advocacy
group in the world. For more than forty years
NFFS has been serving Free Flighters
through various charitable programs.
“NFFS stages the AMA Nationals,
publishes the annual NFFS Symposium
Reports, and disburses tens of thousands of
dollars in scholarships to deserving youth.
For more information on NFFS and its
programs visit www.freeflight.org.”
2012 USA F1D Team Selection Program: I
have accepted the role of Team Selection
Committee chairman for the next F1D cycle
and am looking forward to a great season
leading up to the finals this year.
In addition to the normal functions, there
are a few other tasks I’d like to see
accomplished. Those include:
• Fixing the date on which we elect a new
chairman and implement any program
changes. We are doing both at the start of
this year, but the current Team Selection
cycle started last year (F1D has a two-year
Team Selection cycle).
The program concludes with the final
Team Selection contest, which is often held
Labor Day weekend but is sometimes
scheduled for other dates to accommodate a
particular site.
• Ensure the team’s continued funding. There
are two criteria that affect a team’s funding
level: participation and performance.
We currently receive the highest level of
funding based on the team’s excellent
performance history. (It was recently pointed
out to me that there has never been an F1D
World Championships that didn’t see at least
one US podium spot, including 15 US World
Champions and three podium sweeps.)
However, I would also like to see the
program lock in funding via participation.
We would need 20 or more competitors at
the Team Selection Finals or 25 or more
active members in the Team Selection
Program.
So in addition to fun and challenge
available through the program, you can also
help solidify the program’s funding by
participating in it and attending the finals.
Fly F1D!
• Ensure the Junior team’s current funding.
The Team Procedures Book specifies that “If
there are five or more entered into the team
selection program Junior World
Championship Teams will be fielded and
funded at the discretion of the FAI Executive
Committee.”
This means that we have a continuous
task in front of us to bring new Juniors into
the program as the existing ones graduate.
Achieving this goal will also help us field a
full three-person Junior team—a key step
toward achieving a team podium spot.
The last two Junior teams had only two
members. With a third they almost certainly
would have achieved a podium finish, if not
the team championship.
If you know of any SO hotshots or any
other aviation-minded kids who would be up
for the challenge, contact me via e-mail and I
will help hook them up with local mentors.
A new Web forum is available to discuss
the program, share documents, see the latest
regional standings, etc. I have included the
address at the end of this column.
Hip Pocket Aeronautics F1D Build: If all this
F1D Team Selection talk has you inspired,
check this out. In preparation for his first F1D
World Championships appearance, Australian
Tim Hayward-Brown has been constructing
some new models. He chronicled his latest
build on the Hip Pocket Aeronautics Web site.
Follow along with Tim’s detailed
descriptions and copious photos. There are
even comments and suggestions from several
current World Championship participants
from around the world.
Tim’s process isn’t the only way to get a
model done, but it is one complete path with
many innovative techniques. I have
constructed more than 20 F1Ds, but even I
learned a few tricks.
Till next time. MA
Sources:
Science Olympiad:
www.soinc.org
AMA Indoor FF Nats:
www.modelaircraft.org
EAA Indoor FF contest registration form and
flyer:
http://bit.ly/gQxC9r
NFFS membership offer:
http://bit.ly/dMhxF8
US F1D Team Selection forum:
http://yhoo.it/hhYjNS
Hip Pocket Aeronautics F1D build:
http://bit.ly/gb0XyE
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