Science Olympiad Students Smash National Records at the Midwest Indoor FF Championships
By Brian Turnbull
—Kent State University Field House in Ohio
On May 25-27, 2024, seven Science Olympiad students from three mid-Michigan high schools and one middle school, coached by Brian Turnbull, showed up in force at the Midwest Indoor Championships at the Kent State University fieldhouse to fly. Their plan was to break the youth Junior and youth Senior Indoor Free Flight ceiling category II (15-meter ceiling height) national records for Limited Penny Plane, Open Penny Plane, and F1M. These students are also the first-, second-, and third-place high school teams and the first-place middle school team from the 2024 Michigan State Science Olympiad Championships Flight event. They are all highly accomplished model airplane competitors who work in collaboration for the entire school year to fly, log, and analyze flight data, and optimize trim and rubber winding. As a group, they put in more than 1,500 test flights with their Science Olympiad airplanes this school year. A few of them even have 5 or 6 years of flying experience.
After the Science Olympiad season ended for the students, they didn’t want to stop flying so they built LPP/OPP/F1M airplanes two weeks before the Kent contest and practiced one session with 1/2 motors; (4:45 on 1/2 motors at 20- to 24-foot climb height). The group then descended on the Kent State Field House for two days of flying and broke four of the six national records definitively and repeatedly, sharing the records back and forth over and over again. They broke the records a total of 15 times in two days, improving the youth junior records for LPP from 8:42 to 9:53, for OPP from 8:35 to 9:53 and F1M from 5:55 to 9:53 and improving the youth senior F1M record from 6:18 to 9:54!
The plan discussed ahead of the contest was to fly safely below the girders and get records. After one of the group beat the record, the rest of them threw the safe flying plan out the window and went for broke, rattling all over the girders at 55-60 ft to try to beat their teammates. Competition was both friendly and intense with all the them sharing winding, rubber, and trim strategy. They even got pretty good at balloon retrieving out of the girders (except for one very challenging one on top of a light 55 feet up—thanks, John Kagan!). Most of the records they beat have been around for 18 to 24 years!
Almost all flights were with 1.5-gram motors so that they could get the F1M record or the LPP or OPP record with each flight. The only records they didn’t get were the LPP and OPP youth Senior records of 10:10. Next year, they’ll fly longer motors (1.9 to 2.2 grams) and definitely get these last two records.
Three of the students also built simple F1N gliders at the contest (the Crow F1N from J&H Aerospace, a simple 1/2-hour build, 13 gram Category 1 glider capable of roughly a 30- to 35-foot launch height) and got some very respectable 32- to 35-second flights.
The airplanes they flew at Kent were Tom Sova’s Bad Penny LPP planform with Bill Gowen’s Carbon Penny wing and stabilizer construction method, and Chuck Andraka’s propeller. Thanks very much to Coach Chuck Andraka who generously shared detailed design and flying tips because he has a lot experience flying F1M, LPP,, and F1D with students.
Overall, it was a great couple days of flying. The students (and their parents) had a lot of fun! Thanks very much to Don Slusarczyk for running a superb contest and for wearing out his pen filling out national record application forms! I heard him mention that he had never filled out so many record forms at one contest.
Brian Turnbull (Coach Brian)
