They've got thumbs up now, sorted by date.

I agree on the flyability of most entries, though I think the most frightening problems were yaw stability, rather than pitch.

I'm pleased to report that the Belle flew beautifully - handled like a sport plane, except for some really bad manners on takeoff and landing. Those came from moving the CG forward without remounting the landing gear. And she looked great in her new vintage racer paint sceme!

We did have trouble taking off in no wind with our original prop, and had to step up to a bigger, slower one, which sucked more current and flew the plane slower, so we didn't manage to finish the radome mission under the crosswind conditions I got my only good attempt at it under. That, combined with my less than perfect piloting, a surprisingly poor report score, and a run of the *worst* luck imaginable, combined to bring us in at the appropriate position of number 13.

To give you an idea of our luck, on a good run of the radome mission, our battery came *unplugged* in flight. Luckily, even fully loaded, the Belle is a great glider thanks to that flat drag polar, and I managed to make an uneventful dead-stick to the runway.

We'll be taking her back out for some more testing, including the addition of in-flight data acquisition, in preparation for next year's competition.

What david failed to mention is that SDSU took first, in a great up from behind run against Cal Poly SLO. Excellent piloting and engineering made those two teams both stand out.

And I agree, the MSU guys had a great plane this year...

But we're comin' for ya!