Usman,

I am very familiar with the AIAA Cessna/ONR Design, Build, Fly Contest. I am the pilot for Oklahoma State University. We have won 1st and 2nd the past 2 years. We were able to complete the tasks easily by just using pug in wings. One of our teams didn't even have to remove the landing gear. You can see the pictures at this link. http://www.terrabreak.org/hangar/ok-state/ Our planes weighed under 7 pounds with batteries and had no problems flying with the 3 pound payloads on each wing tip. From a pilot stand point it took a little getting used to the roll inertia but was controlable. No planes were lost at the contest because of the wing tip payloads. Check out these pictures if you want to see how big of a plane will fit in the described box with some creativity. http://www.terrabreak.org/hangar/usma/2005.shtml

The failsafe setup is purely for the purpose of crashing the plane. They want the plane to crash if you lose the radio. It is just the opinion of the contest officials that this is the safest way to go. We never fly over people so it would only cost and airplane. I had to dump one of our planes a few years ago because it was heading toward the spectators. Safety is the first priority.

This is a great contest and everyone involved has a great time. The contest is in its 10th year so they have a pretty good grasp of how to make up the tasks. They change every year to prevent showing up with the same plane every year.


Dan