Paul,
I'm not sure how many teams actually attempted the payload deployment, but 16 teams posted scores for that mission. 16 teams also posted scores for the "hardest" mission, where the antenna thing had to be carried. Only one team posted a score for the "com repeater" mission where you just flew 4 laps with the package inside. I saw at least one plane deploy their payload on touchdown... which was unintentional. Almost surprisingly, there were no in-flight deployments that I'm aware of.

Starfire,
Thanks for the compliment! It was hard work... SLO was a really tough team to beat!

One of the things that helped us was that our plane was reliable and easy to fly... which meant we could strategize. We calculated that our best chance for improvement was in the package deployment mission, even though it was given a mission difficulty of 1.5 instead of 2 for the com repeater. The deployment mission was more pilot intensive, as it required a good landing in a small area, without wasting too much time making a slow final aproach. Our plane was very fast and we weren't using brakes, so the pilot had to use a lot of skill. I was glad I didn't have to do it!

-David