Just so everyone's familiar with the competition rules, the SAE Aerodesign West states that the model airplane must be powered by a stock OS 61, must have a minimum of 300 cu.in contigious rectangular cargo area (we've been trying to get them to clarify this for the last three years), and a maximum span of 6 feet. There's some others, but those are the important ones.

Zwei, is this your first year competing? If it is, you should be aware that the place they hold the competition for the western region is Palmdale, which is FREAKIN WINDY!! Last year, we had 15 - 25 mph wind. And when I say 15 mph, I mean that's the LOWEST it ever got. And that's not considered to be unordinary during the spring. There were some planes last year that could take off fine, but they were so draggy they could not penetrate into the wind at all.

Ben, yeah, the planes are kinda ugly. But hey, let's see a Extra 300 or a scale P-51 take off with 5 times it's own weight within 200 feet.