RCU Forums - Idiot or Not ?

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RE: Idiot or Not ?

Some People are getting very offened as if they own the AIAA or if someone has given any personal comments to them.

I have no experience with the AIAA contest. However I have competed in many Nationals as well as international events and won a few of them . I have a good deal of design experience, my designs are manufactured by manufacturers globally and some top pilots will soon be flying them, The first one being Mark Leseberg Jr, who asked me for one of my designs personally.
Its not that designing a plane is a challenge, but I needed more details as I am leading and guiding 14 teams in my University.

It is the first time this contest is being organized here. When I asked these questions to the organizers, they didn't know what to answer (the AIAA student section at topi). Which has caused a lot of misconceptions. They were unable to answer most of my queries. It was nice to hear from people who have previously participated in the event. The information I got was that the plane should fit in a 1' by 2' by 4' box in its assembled form.If the size is 1' by 2' by 4' for unassembled aircarft, there ain't any issue, but this is what we were guided that "it should fit in it 1' by 2' by 4' box" while assembeld. There are some other minor issues as well but they can be overlooked, the major concerns being the size and use of fail safe. Most of the teams under my supervision are unable to go for a radio with fail safe feature. I still strongly disagree to the fail safe settings.
Secondly the flying site where the event is going to take place is quite small and restricted. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to more details on the event so that I can guide people here. I hope the contest organizers will avoid "Idiotic" things in future and will move to practicality.

RE: Idiot or Not ?

Ugh! :eek:

You can have your opinion but it was not idiotic. It is a very real engineering challenge that many teams met with flying colors. I can understand some of your confusion being that english is not your first language. I lived in Japan for 4 years and can not imagine trying to figure out the rules of an engineering contest in Japanese.

If you have no intention of entering DBF use whatever you want and make your own rules. I think all of the things you feel are idiotic have been adequately explained. It is their contest and we play by their rules. You say you compete. Do you complain to FAI that a particular maneuver in F3A is idiotic, the weight limits, the 2 meter size restraints. Those are the rules and if you want to play that is the way it is. Nearly 40 schools from 4 countries didn't think it was idiotic.

Dan

RE: Idiot or Not ?

Desire,

Read the whole thread. I think it is pretty well explained.

Dan

Quote:

ORIGINAL: desire140

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Tall Paul

Now that AIAA has been mentioned, there is a legitimate purpose. AIAA and SAE sponsor university level competitions for designing, buildling and flying airplanes to meet the criteria for the contest.
The events are quite popular in the technical universities, with competitors from all over the world coming to the US for the finals, and some nations spinning off their own series, as in Brazil.
It's as close as a student can get to the real world they'll be graduating into, with the experience of designing, building, explaining the design, and proving it by flying it, instead of the usual academic method of talking the subject to death.
The AIAA site ..
http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/aiaadbf/
.
the SAE site is:
http://students.sae.org/competitions/aerodesign/west/

The AIAA Fail-safe rule: o Radio fail-safe check. All aircraft radios must have a fail-safe mode that is automatically selected during loss of transmit signal. The fail-safe will be demonstrated on the ground by switching off the transmit radio. During fail safe the aircraft receiver must select:

Throttle closed
Full up elevator
Full right rudder
Full right (or left) aileron
Full Flaps down (if so equipped)

The radio Fail Safe provisions will be strictly enforced.

LOL ....... This is indeed funny and Idiotic !
I thought fail safe was made to save planes .... the new use has come just into my knowledge.
In my 25 years of aviation experience, I have not seen anything measuring 1' by 2' by 4'.
Whatever the AIAA might be, it looks like they need some serious professional help.
I read the rules and guidelines, and would like to give adivce to the AIAA on about 14 things that should be corrected.
Look , I am not against the AIAA or the contest but I would like to ask , If you ask Chip to go for a plane measuring 1' by 2' by 4' will he go for it ? Never. Because he is a serious aviator nad has no time for this nor does nay serious avitator has.
I would like to say that I encourage all contests but we should be utilizing our energy, time and money for a positive and practical outcome.
If you see the NASA contest , its about making an aircraft that can carry people to space, making a space liner like an air liner, now thats something to go for.

RE: Idiot or Not ?

Quote:

ORIGINAL: why_fly_high

Ugh! :eek:

You can have your opinion but it was not idiotic. It is a very real engineering challenge that many teams met with flying colors. I can understand some of your confusion being that english is not your first language. I lived in Japan for 4 years and can not imagine trying to figure out the rules of an engineering contest in Japanese.

If you have no intention of entering DBF use whatever you want and make your own rules. I think all of the things you feel are idiotic have been adequately explained. It is their contest and we play by their rules. You say you compete. Do you complain to FAI that a particular maneuver in F3A is idiotic, the weight limits, the 2 meter size restraints. Those are the rules and if you want to play that is the way it is. Nearly 40 schools from 4 countries didn't think it was idiotic.

Dan

So live with it !
I do not complain about F3A because I donot think they are Idiotic. Some people out there that are of high caliber also point out defects and imporivements in the F3A and stuff. Some people also complain, its upto them.
I have raised my opnion (which is the opnion of many others as well) , you live happily the way things are and I live happily, the way I want. You cannot force me to give the same opnion about a single thing, neither can I force you. I wanted to know what others thought, and most of them , as the poll shows for now, say its not idiotic. I still have my opnion on the poll while they have their.
If people just say yes to everything and accept everything the way things are , there cannot be improvement, you must try to take things positively.

RE: Idiot or Not ?

There's nothing stupid about contest limitations like this. The military puts requirements like this on UAV's all the time. One UAV I saw advertised the fuse and wing being able to fit thru a std ship or sub hatch.

Fail-safe was made to make planes safe FOR PEOPLE. Not for saving planes. If the rules people believe that a right-hand spiral is best for radio failure - then they probably have good reasons for it.

I have personally been flying contest planes where I gave very similar inputs in order to keep things safe for the people - the planes? not so much. Crunch.

I have also been at SAE contests where a plane that would very nearly satisfy these requirements AS FLOWN lifted 8 lbs AND did an aileron roll on the downwind leg. Basically it looked like a pregnant Diamond-delta thingy.

RE: Idiot or Not ?

John,

You hit the nail on the head. The rules are writtne by folks from ONR, Office of Naval Research. I think they have a pretty good clue of what is going on in the real world. One year we had to fly with a simulated antenna that was 12 in. diameter and 4 inches tall. It had to be at leat 4 inches from the aircraft I believe. You think there are real world applications for that? Also that year your assembly time was part of your score. A bunch of team got there plane assembled ready for flight in under 30 seconds. I think the fastest was in the teens.

Dan

RE: Idiot or Not ?

It is interesting that one person from Bangladesh and one from Botswana registered specially to post on this thread (and I am sure vote for "Idiotic" or "Very Idiotic"). Despite being from different parts of the world, they use the same language and show the same ignorance towards the AIAA, the DBF competition and the use of failsafe to protect spectators rather than the aircraft... Furthermore, I don't know much about Bangladesh but the Botswana modeling community is very small and none of their universities have an aeronautical engineering department.

As for the organizers of the AIAA event - they are all professional aeronautical engineers. The rules of the competition are set firstly to provide a highly challenging format for aeronautical engineering students to give them some experience of real-world engineering within tight constraints. The rules on failsafe are set not for saving the aircraft, but for protecting spectators by ensuring the aircraft will crash within the designated flying area (spinning straight down from the point where control is lost), rather than allowing it to wander over the crowd line or other surrounding areas. I am very concerned that someone who is apparently going to be involved in a competition of similar format, don't even seem to understand the purpose of the competition nor the safety requirements.

RE: Idiot or Not ?

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EVERYONE THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS

THREAD CLOSED

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RE: Idiot or Not ?

Can he do that? [:-]:D[:-]:D[:-]:D :eek:

Quote:

ORIGINAL: uby

RE: Idiot or Not ?

I'm dumfounded.

Yeah, I want one of his designs. Namedropper to boot.

Hey uby, NASA called, said they want you to lead their new design team.