All There Is To Know About the Flying Game

Staying in the air is important for airplanes.*

*Citation needed.

However, the most important part of being an airplane is making a successful landing, with as few explosions as possible. This way, you can continue being an airplane. Last year, our electrical problems played havoc with our attempted landings, causing serious damage to the plane each day. This year, we rely on first-string electronics (we ended up using backups last year) and our good karma to prevent such issues.

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“Struggling” to hold back the plane as the propeller spins at 0 RPM.

UPDATES:

Waiting... watching...
Waiting… watching…

0945: We are preparing our plane for technical inspection. The judges check to be sure we have appropriate failsafes (fuses) and that our plane is airworthy. Both are prerequisites for being cleared to try the main missions.

1010: One of our battery packs is mysteriously low on charge! Dedicated readers remember that we just charged last night. Is it leaking?

In the short term, we will attempt two fixes. We will of course recharge. Also, we will disable the low voltage cutoff on the speed controller. Normally, the plane would shut down when the batteries get too low. We can easily override this behavior, to continue flying to the last joule.

We haven’t even been cleared to fly yet and we’re already disabling safety features. Welcome to engineering, check your common sense at the door.

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A full house!

1058: The team is hard at work playing cards while we await technical inspection. There are teams from all over the US, both coasts and everywhere in between, not to mention the international teams!

They have us sheltered in a hangar while we wait, protected from today’s vibrant sun. It’s great flying weather, but my Irish complexion is thankful to be in the shade instead.

Work hard, play hard.
Work hard, play hard.
Hanging around the hangar.
Hanging around the hangar.

1135: Batteries charged, and we are producing over 50 Watts/lb! Not too bad.

1202: 18 teams left until they call our number. Also, Mitchell says “I am a frisbee elitist.” I refuse to provide context for that quote on the grounds that it’s funnier without any.

1315: Did you know there are crucial differences between types of shrink wrap? Now you do! And knowing is half the battle! The other half, in our case, is struggling to resolve our battery issues before inspection. We are team 43 and they are on 31 now.

Drama! Thrills! Suspense! Keep mashing the refresh button until I update again, obviously.

1515: Bureaucracy, my old nemesis…

Our plane passes tech inspection, but we aren’t allowed to fly until we fill out the pre-tech inspection form… after tech inspection. Yes, you read that right.

Unfortunately this means we missed our first chance to do the ground taxi mission, but we will get another chance when our number next rolls around. The form has been taken care of!

1645: SOUND THE BELLS, WE ARE CLEARED! The plane passed tech inspection with flying (heh) colors. We will begin our ground test next time our number comes up. I will have a few more updates today re:how the test goes and any subsequent repairs.

1945: Our number never came up! Fortunately we should be just about first in line in the morning.

Tomorrow will come in a separate post. I hope you will be entertained by my slow descent into madness. Hopefully we will also be able to provide you with more pictures of the airfield–there are a lot of experimental planes and cool scrap parts around!

The road to the runway.
The road to the runway.