Youngsters show their talent and skills
Bruce Corfe once again gives us an insight into what is considered by
many one of the top calendar events of the year – The British Model
Flying Association University and Schools Payload Challenge.
The annual BMFA Payload University
and Schools Challenges are, in my view,
one of the aeromodelling events of the
year. In addition to designing a model
aircraft which will lift a payload (different
items in the different classes), teams are
awarded points for their report, drawings
and presentations, which tests students'
skills in design, technical knowledge and
teamwork.
BAE Systems
The challenge also enjoys the support
of BAE Systems, joined this year by the
Royal Aeronautical Society, the oldest
aerospace society in the world, who on
their 150th anniversary have donated a
prize of £400 per category for innovation
in design. Under the aegis of BMFA
Development Officer Manny Williamson
(overall Competition Organiser and
Director) and Club Support Officer Andy
Symons (Flight Line Controller) plus an
army of workers from both the BMFA and
“West Bridgford School's
shocking-pink V-tail model
used gaffer-tape to retain
its balsa block payload.”
local clubs, especially members of the
York Model Aircraft Society organised
by their Chairman, Adrian Barker, the
event is held each year at the enormous
Elvington Airfield near York.
Judging is by a panel of professional
engineers – Nigel Revill, Simon
Vaitkevicius, Robin Sleight, BMFA Chair
Chris Moynihan and Chief Judge,
Andrew White plus Mike Goulette and
John Dominie of the RAeS. Chief of the
scrutineers team was Mr BMFA 'Dart',
Mike Colling of the Education Working
Cardinal wing and Cub tail - South Wales' entry is
probably the only one with a future as a weekend
sport model?
PAYLOAD CHALLENGE
Bruce Corfe
Group, who launched the Challenge 21
years ago. The scrutineers had a busy
time on Saturday morning including
coping with complaints about variable
results from the electronic scales.
Only fixed wing designs are permitted
to enter the competition, and from this
year there is no wingspan limit. The
motor in all categories is an E-flight
Power 10 motor plus an E-flight 40A
speed controller. The battery must be
a 3 cell 2200 mAh LiPo. Gyros and auto
pilots are not permitted. Cash prizes are
awarded to winners and institutions in
each category (plus the RAeS innovation
prize).
Designer Ollie Harris holds the University of
South Wales' highly conventional Quantity entry
- great flyer but the small tennis-ball payload
and slow loading are self-evident here.
Sleek twin-boom entry from Brockford Barn won
the Distance challenge convincingly.
Priestley College's blue foam distance entry had
a narrow escape when the payload hatch came
open in flight!
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BMFA NEWS October 2016
Tsing Hua High School's balsa-block carrier was only the second ever tailless model to score - came a
close second in Distance.
www.bmfa.org
Challenge 1 (D for Distance) for schools
and youth organisations, is less rigorous
than the existing challenges. Models
have to be loaded with and carry an
enormous half-kilo balsa block and
complete as many laps as possible in five
minutes.
Challenge 2 (Q for Quantity). The payload
is now tennis balls and teams have to
load as many balls as feasible, complete
a circuit, unload and repeat until the 10
minute time slot is up.
Challenge 3 (W for Weight), previously
the Heavy Lift Challenge, has moved
to an all-electric propulsion system
rather than the previous i/c engines,
Frantic pits activity as Queen's Uni Belfast team
load their 3rd-placed Quantity entry.
That's the way to do it! High-speed loading chute
and brilliant team-work from Beihang Uni in
Quantity.
“Beihang University's big
Quantity team made an
excellent presentation, in
English, using an identical
model (in sections) to their
competition entry.”
which were the main cause of delays
and non-starts in previous years. Teams
have to fly a prescribed circuit carrying a
water payload. The hemispherical tennis
ball 'sensor' has been replaced this
year with a larger polystyrene sphere, a
simulated optical sensor, located inside
the fuselage of the aircraft, allowing a
clear 60 degree conical view vertically
Instantaneous release of 50 balls with Beihang's
ingenious load system.
Flip-up nose with simple gearbox and all the
propulsion gear on Beihang's ball-carrier.
down more representative of a UAV/UAS
camera requirement. A light model will
suffer fewer penalties under a payload
handicap system.
BMFA Chair Chris Moynihan did the
introductions and welcome, followed
by pep talks from the judges and the
RAeS members. With 25 teams present,
a busy weekend was assured! Following
the Reports and Drawings scores,
Beihang University's QO2 team and PFH
Gottingen Stade's W11 were in the lead
with 44 and 43 points respectively.
Presentations to the judges were in the
noisy marquee, but as soon as a team
had presented their homework it was
outside to fly in the initially damp airfield
environment so your scribe followed
the action! Stuart Knowles was again
available to teams as BMFA designated
pilot and Alasdair Sutherland piloted the
Strathclyde University entries once more.
(Strathclyde entered three teams in each
of 'Quantity' and 'Weight' - class act).
Both Germany and China have winning
form here - how would things pan out
this year?
They’re off! Challenge 1 –
Distance.
D01 West Bridgford School's shockingpink V-tail model used gaffer-tape to
retain its balsa block payload. After a
quick but erratic take-off run it flew fast
and noisily – a good flyer, it completed
an excellent 11 laps. In the second
round after another manic take-off run
it completed another 10 fast and noisy
laps and just missed an 11th. Total score:
130.2
D02, Priestley College's bulbous blue
foam 'Oxygene' with Arthur Griffiths of
Warrington M.C. piloting, was rather
Away she goes - ten balls in each of five load tubes on their way to Beihang's best total - an amazing 280 balls in 6 laps and 10 minutes.
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October 2016 BMFA NEWS
31
unstable in the air. Arthur has flown
own-built jet turbines since the nineties,
and puts in several hours each week
working with Priestley College students
on their two Challenge entries. It
completed 3 laps before it made a heavy
landing after the lid came open! Various
problems prevented a score in the
second round. Total score: 55.67
“The first flight was, er,
interesting. It took off, flew
too high, touched down,
took off again, stalled in
and lost the front wheel.”
team made an excellent presentation,
in English, using an identical model (in
sections) to their competition entry,
specially to show the judges. The
tadpole-shaped fuselage is of largely
carbon construction and contained
five 10-capacity ball tubes and a load
point behind a hinged nose with
the electronics, motor and a simple
o/d gearbox. Flying surfaces are of
traditional materials with transparent
covering and a high aspect-ratio wing. If
this thing flew well it was going to take
some beating...
D03 Beihang Tsing Hua High School
(China) - their red/purple tailless
Distance entry was quite crudely (but
lightly) built using traditional balsa
construction and was small considering
the size of the enormous mandatory
balsa payload. The team brought a spare
tailless model which was demonstrated
to the judges and was always on hand,
but flew the red one and had to wait for
the big balsa block to arrive for the first
Distance flight of the weekend. After
an initial problem with the nose-wheel
the model flew fast and smoothly on
elevons and rudder to post 9 laps, with
the battery getting low on oomph
before the time ran out, only the second
tailless model to score in the history of
the competition. An excellent 11 laps in
Round 2 contributed to an overall score
of: 137.4
Q01 University of South Wales' red/
yellow tractor entry was the most
conventional and to my eyes one of the
best-looking. Designer and runner Ollie
Harris is an aeromodeller himself and
had loosely based the wing of his design
on a Veron Cardinal and the tail-feathers
on a Piper Cub - how retro is that?
D04 Brockford Barn, Suffolk is a learning
community for students finding
difficulties with mainstream education.
Q02 Beihang University's big Quantity
Awesome - Stade Team 'Hydra's hugely high-tech
but ill-fated X-Wing project - tail surfaces are all
3D-printed.
Strathclyde Uni 'C' Team were the best of the
rest with a brilliant 222 balls carried in their best
round.
Servo-assisted payload covers reveal the
amazing carbon & laser-cut payload bay of
Stade's X-Wing model.
Their twin boom model was a
development of last year's problematic
design, this time with a streamlined teardrop fuselage. Their 'Aeronauts' team
completed 10 excellent laps at their
first attempt, followed by another 11
in Round 2. Total score: a class-topping
139.6
Challenge 2 – Quantity.
The model, with lots of dihedral and
ailerons, turned like a pylon racer
(onlookers feared for its structural
integrity but all went well) but had a
fuselage only deep enough to carry 10
balls and ran on for miles after landing
so Ollie had a lots of running to do to
achieve a first-round total of 48 balls and
a second-round of 68. (The team turned
up for Sunday's flying only to realise
belatedly that they'd already maxed with
their two scoring rounds - RFM!!) Total
score: 77.09
Strathclyde 'D's load system was equally impromptu but the team managed
a strong fourth place in Quantity.
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BMFA NEWS October 2016
They also had an awesome quick-load
system and amazing team-work. They
made a good first flight but removed
one side of the main u/c on first landing,
damage which would have sent most
teams back for an early bath, but no,
Andy Symons looks on as Strathclyde Uni 'D' Team use a blanket as an
improvised unloading system.
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with much seeming panic, shouted
advice/abuse from the team manager/
political overseer and the use of Kevlar
string and cyano, the model was back in
the air within the time slot and posted a
huge total of 120 balls for the first round
- incredible!
In the second round their practise load
effort was amazing. With more shouting
from the overseer directed over walkietalkie to the pilot (via earphones)
and the load team, the unfazed pilot
made six faultless laps to score an
(unbeatable?) Round 2 total of 280! Total
score: 167.2
Q03 was Priestley College's ambitious
blue/ yellow 'Mystery Model' groundeffect craft or Ekranoplan, piloted by
Sheffield Hallam Uni's 'Pinocchio' Weight flyer
struggled but was just pipped into fifth place - by
one tenth of a point.
modeller Arthur Griffiths. The Ekranoplan
has Spektrum AS3X stability system
governing roll and pitch and steering
is by a gimballed tractor motor mount.
The craft is designed to fly at a height
of about 10cm using ground-effect
cushioning. The first flight was, er,
interesting. It took off, flew too high,
touched down, took off again, stalled
in and lost the front wheel. This was the
model's 7th flight and 7th crash... Sunday
didn't go any better - the model did go
into ground effect but at turn 1 it reared
up and crashed terminally in a shower of
balls. Nil point. Total score: 53.0
Q04, 5 & 6 - Manchester Uni's three
models failed to arrive, sadly (I see things
have gone downhill since I was a student
there myself...)
Q08 Sheffield Hallam Uni's red/white
model got a 'late homework' report
penalty. Its first attempt had radio
issues and it failed to start. The team
had a good improvised ball-loading
system, but they had connected the
motor backwards which lost time – once
corrected, the model ground-looped.
Then in the air it proved very sensitive in
pitch and gave the flag judges a scare!
All then went well until its last lap when
it lost all the balls on the airfield(!) - no
matter, a total of 77 was posted for the
round, followed by 43 in Round 2. Total
score: 78.1
Q10 was Stade (Germany) Team 'Hydra'
University of Applied Science's Airbus
Industries apprentices' hugely ambitious
but ill-fated four-wing 'X-Wing' craft
(can't call it a biplane, it was more like a
dragonfly and truly echoed its Star Wars
inspiration). The model had an exquisite
carbon fuselage with full-length servooperated load hatches (via a switch on
the exterior).
All of the swept tail surfaces, fixed and
moving, were of transparent, hollow,
plastic construction produced on a 3D
printer. (Picking up a spare tail-plane, it
felt immensely strong and rigid if not
especially light). The four removable
tapered wings were of immaculate
carbon and laser-cut balsa geodetic
construction, with an aileron on each,
attached in X-fashion and even had a
final flourish – 3D-printed Star-Wars
wing-tips!
However, on its first flight with a
light payload it looked very unstable
and crashed by the first marker flag,
tragically doing sufficient damage to
the undercarriage etc to render it U/S.
Sadly, their Vorsprung durch technik sind
kaput. Total score: 61.8
Q11 Queens Uni Belfast's blue/white
twin-boom couldn't find their fuse –
Andy advised the culprit to never be
a best man – a good first laden flight
and a bouncy landing caused a battery
disconnection problem and brief delay
at the next launch. Over-filled for the
third flight it flew with the ball-cover
lid bent up! Pilot Stuart gave the model
the thumbs-up and the first-round total
reached 136. Sunday's flying involved
some heavy and bouncy landings but
pilot Stuart improved and posted 6 good
laps for an increased total of 186. Total
score: 123.83
Q12 Strathclyde Uni Team C's blue/silver
Priestley College's ambitious ground-effect
'Ekranoplan' - steering is by a gimballed motormount.
Balls! Sheffield Hallam Uni's fast-flying Quantity
model has landing incident on its way to fifth
place in class.
Balls! Again!! The Priestley College team head off into the boondocks to recover the comprehensively
destroyed Ekranoplan and its payload.
www.bmfa.org
Strathclyde Uni 'A' Team Weight model was
overly pitch sensitive on its first unladen flight
and crashed - unfortunately no payload score
was posted.
October 2016 BMFA NEWS
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