For SAE, it's a good time to be doing this. Actually, to do a good job, you will need to hurry a little. You should have the design of the plane finished in the next few weeks, so you can use the rest of the year to do the detail design of the parts and draw plans.

Construction would take up January and Februrary, if you are on schedule - leavnig March to get finished up before the competition. Don't procrastinate!

I know so from experience. I competed in 1990. SInce then I was the rules chairman for the SAE event for about 5 years, and I was the chief organizer for the East competition for about 6 years. Lately I just volunteer where I can, and pilot for teams that don't have their own pilot.

the airfoil

The Selig 1223 is currently the pinaccle of airfoil design for low-speed, high CL. However, your estimate of Re=300k is quite a bit off, unless you plan on having an unusually large wing chord. In the standard class, a large chord would limit your wing to a prohibitively low aspect ratio of less than 5. It would be better practice to assume a reynolds number of 150000 and use the corresponding curves, even lower if you have a highly tapered wing

As for flaps, if you look at this airfoil, it has a carefully managed camber profile - where there is alot of camber at the leading edge - then a very flat "ramp"area designed to delay flow separation. The last part of the airfoil has added camber, probably the most that could be added without seeing added drag or lost lift from separated airflow.

So, I believe the airfoil was designed with the maximum practical trailing edge camber. Adding more camber with a plain flap would not be good.

I have seen leading edge slots used in this competition with good results. On an airfoil like this, with the high camber up front, a slot would probably do very well to energize the airflow. However, it would be a gap right thru the thick part of the wing, where you probably want your spar to be. It could be done, but don't neglect spar strength. As for how much benefit it would be, you'd have to do your own tests.

Slotted flaps have been used as well, with good results. On this airfoil, they would probably have a good impact putting the slot right where the airfoil starts to increase camber it the trailing edge. THen camber could possibly be added for more lift. The problem is, this airfoil is so thin at the trailing edge, you might not be able to ( or want to) build a flap that is that thin. That's OK. Just build the flap using the same upper surface outline, and as thick as it needs to be for reasonable structure. Using a single slot flap, with hinge line below the chord line(DC-9 style) would be good. The web site below shows examples of this.

Here's a good web site about flap & slat design:

http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/highli...liftintro.html