Flugtag! The Great Panic, The Long Road to Wichita, The Flight of the Phoenix, Huckshold's Mad Dash, and The Little Catastrophe that Wasn't
Sleep?
The plane flies. And lands. And gets points. Getting it there took a Herculean effort and will go down as one of the great accomplishments in the history of DBF. So how exactly did we do it.
Rebuilding began last Monday evening and continued more or less around the clock. Regretably, my contribution was somewhat limitied since I still had church music to write. Anyway, a few people pulled a few all nighters, and we helped whenever we could between classes, although organization was somewhat lacking and I wound up there by myself a few times without any clue of what to do. By Thursday, we were pretty close, so we packed the incompleted plane and all our equipment and hit the road. For 10 hours. I drove the first half of that, then feebly attempted to sleep. We got in at 6 in the morning. The drivers (myself included) slept, and rebuilding continued.
We'd really hoped to be done on Friday. That way we could get our proving flight and tech inspection done as well and have all Saturday to compete. This wound up not happening. In fact, we couldn't even get a proving flight off (required for tech inspection) before sunset. We did finish the plane, though, within five days of the crash. That in and of itself is worth seomthing.
We got up at dawn Saturday and found an abandoned road for our flight. We got everything we needed: we took off, landed, and got it on tape. Then it was off to competition. We got through tech inspection mid-morning, then it was time to wait in line. About the line: The missions this year took a lot longer and resulted in a lot fewer trip-ending crashes, so the line was long. On average, you'd wait about three or four hours for a flight, so you needed every chance you could get. We got our first flight in mid-afternoon, where we ran the easiest mission there was, which involved carrying loads of tennis balls for 2 minutes. Bear in mind that the previous plane had never landed successfully while carrying anything. But we tried anyway, and we successfully landed both the necessary laps. We almost blew the 10 minute limit for allowable flight time, but we got it in okay. Points on the board! That in and of itself is worth something. Of course, then we turned around and got back in line, hoping we'd make it back to the front before flights ended. We didn't.
Back to it on Sunday. In retrospect, we should have gotten up a bit earlier, as the line had already formed when we got there. The day's goal was to get points for the second, harder mission, which involved the balls/bottles/block payload sequence that I've been worrying about for six months. We got to fly around noon. The first lap, with balls, did fine. We knew that woudn't be a problem. Next up were the bottles. We didn't lose the speed control, but the gear snapped on landing. Not at the connection to the plane, which would have been catastrophic. Rather, the strut itself sheared just above the wheel connection. Very wierd, but easily repairable. Repairs were accomplished in about 15 minutes, then back in line.
We got back to the front around 3 for our last chance. Now this is when it got really interesting. My job during the flight process was to run to the plane after it landed, remove the fuse, return it to the start line, then re-insert the fuse once the crew had reloaded it. Up until now, this had not been a problem. However, it was getting on in the afternoon, and I had been applying sunscreen all day. Which meant that I didn't get the fuse in all the way the first time. The pilot himself had to do it, and he was not amused. Takeoff, land. Then I couldn't get the fuse out. The pilot did it again, now that I was established as being completely useless. This was the bottle flight, and we landed successfully. Way the heck down the runway. So I had to run as fast as I could to get the plane. Problem is, it turns out I can't run that fast. Here's a sample of the post-flight conversation with the team:
Them: "You gotta run fast"
Me: "I was running fast"
Them: "It looked like you were jogging"
Me: "Shut up!"
Anyway, I got to the plane, still couldn't get the fuse out... you get the idea. We ran the block flight as well and landed successfully. And we finished up with, by my watch, 9 minutes and 15 seconds of the allowed 10 minutes elapsed. So we really had plenty of time. But I'm pretty much guarenteed to never hear the end of this one. We finished 10th, which by my count is still in the top 10. The Oklahoma State teams cleaned up, as usual. We beat all three MIT teams, one of which crashed spectacularly on Saturday. Then it was back to Chambana. We got in about 4 in the morning, still less than a week after the previous plane had crashed. And we brought back with us an intact aircraft. People don't always realize how rare that is.
Then it was time for sleep, now it's time to work on everything I forgot last week.
The plane flies. And lands. And gets points. Getting it there took a Herculean effort and will go down as one of the great accomplishments in the history of DBF. So how exactly did we do it.
Rebuilding began last Monday evening and continued more or less around the clock. Regretably, my contribution was somewhat limitied since I still had church music to write. Anyway, a few people pulled a few all nighters, and we helped whenever we could between classes, although organization was somewhat lacking and I wound up there by myself a few times without any clue of what to do. By Thursday, we were pretty close, so we packed the incompleted plane and all our equipment and hit the road. For 10 hours. I drove the first half of that, then feebly attempted to sleep. We got in at 6 in the morning. The drivers (myself included) slept, and rebuilding continued.
We'd really hoped to be done on Friday. That way we could get our proving flight and tech inspection done as well and have all Saturday to compete. This wound up not happening. In fact, we couldn't even get a proving flight off (required for tech inspection) before sunset. We did finish the plane, though, within five days of the crash. That in and of itself is worth seomthing.
We got up at dawn Saturday and found an abandoned road for our flight. We got everything we needed: we took off, landed, and got it on tape. Then it was off to competition. We got through tech inspection mid-morning, then it was time to wait in line. About the line: The missions this year took a lot longer and resulted in a lot fewer trip-ending crashes, so the line was long. On average, you'd wait about three or four hours for a flight, so you needed every chance you could get. We got our first flight in mid-afternoon, where we ran the easiest mission there was, which involved carrying loads of tennis balls for 2 minutes. Bear in mind that the previous plane had never landed successfully while carrying anything. But we tried anyway, and we successfully landed both the necessary laps. We almost blew the 10 minute limit for allowable flight time, but we got it in okay. Points on the board! That in and of itself is worth something. Of course, then we turned around and got back in line, hoping we'd make it back to the front before flights ended. We didn't.
Back to it on Sunday. In retrospect, we should have gotten up a bit earlier, as the line had already formed when we got there. The day's goal was to get points for the second, harder mission, which involved the balls/bottles/block payload sequence that I've been worrying about for six months. We got to fly around noon. The first lap, with balls, did fine. We knew that woudn't be a problem. Next up were the bottles. We didn't lose the speed control, but the gear snapped on landing. Not at the connection to the plane, which would have been catastrophic. Rather, the strut itself sheared just above the wheel connection. Very wierd, but easily repairable. Repairs were accomplished in about 15 minutes, then back in line.
We got back to the front around 3 for our last chance. Now this is when it got really interesting. My job during the flight process was to run to the plane after it landed, remove the fuse, return it to the start line, then re-insert the fuse once the crew had reloaded it. Up until now, this had not been a problem. However, it was getting on in the afternoon, and I had been applying sunscreen all day. Which meant that I didn't get the fuse in all the way the first time. The pilot himself had to do it, and he was not amused. Takeoff, land. Then I couldn't get the fuse out. The pilot did it again, now that I was established as being completely useless. This was the bottle flight, and we landed successfully. Way the heck down the runway. So I had to run as fast as I could to get the plane. Problem is, it turns out I can't run that fast. Here's a sample of the post-flight conversation with the team:
Them: "You gotta run fast"
Me: "I was running fast"
Them: "It looked like you were jogging"
Me: "Shut up!"
Anyway, I got to the plane, still couldn't get the fuse out... you get the idea. We ran the block flight as well and landed successfully. And we finished up with, by my watch, 9 minutes and 15 seconds of the allowed 10 minutes elapsed. So we really had plenty of time. But I'm pretty much guarenteed to never hear the end of this one. We finished 10th, which by my count is still in the top 10. The Oklahoma State teams cleaned up, as usual. We beat all three MIT teams, one of which crashed spectacularly on Saturday. Then it was back to Chambana. We got in about 4 in the morning, still less than a week after the previous plane had crashed. And we brought back with us an intact aircraft. People don't always realize how rare that is.
Then it was time for sleep, now it's time to work on everything I forgot last week.
posted by Kevin H | 2:16 PM
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