Bzzzzzzzzzzz... CRUNCH!!

Well, the plane flies. Apparently it flies quite well. It made the maximum takeoff distance with the heaviest payload, so that issue is resolved. Unfortunately, it does not land. Well, there were other problems yesterday afternoon (fried speed control... they still can't figure that one out) which caused a severely hard landing, so failure was to be expected there. And there was some significant damage, which took until 2 in the morning to fix. We were up for another test at 5 in the morning, and for that, the gear sheared off under a normal landing on the heaviest load case. Basically, the gear is attached to the plane itself using flimsy nylon bolts. This is done intentionally so that in the event of a hard landing, the bolts break and the entire bottom of the plane doesn't get ripped out. Unfortunately, the bolts are a bit too flimsy at the moment, so that will need redesigning. 5 days to competition.

In the meantime, I have homework to do and church music to write and church music to practice and I'm woefully deprived of sleep, although I'm not feeling it just yet. And there's a rigorous building and testing schedule for the rest of the week. Looks like one of those weeks of perpetual work.

They let me be concertmaster of the orchestra Thursday. This was a result of a temporary seating shuffle, nothing permanant. I managed to get everyone tuned and unlike what usually happens, I didn't have to call out names of sections as their turn came up. Chalk it up to being six feet tall. Anyway, that was the extent of my authority. It was kinda fun. Brings me back to... 5th grade was the last time for an orchestra anywhere near that size. And I got to "lead" pit orchestra senior year. I forget whether I had tuning authority there or not. Owell.

And that's about it.