There have been several posting about airplanes and airplane challenges, so this might repeat a few previous suggestions. Think of this as a consolodated list. Since some of the suggestions might be dangerous, the airplanes might be remote controlled rather than manned.

1. Speed challenge. Which ever airplane is the fastest through a closed course wins.

2. Heavy lift challenge. Build an airplane capable of lifting the team (or the equivelent weight).

3. Efficiency challenge. Each team is supplied a small motor by the producer (say a weed whacker engine), and must build an airplane capable of lifting the most weight, or flying the longest distance.

4. Dogfight challenge. Each team must work to make the most manouverable aircraft. The winning plane will chop a streamer from the tail of the loser in a dogfight.

Happy flying

-- Arthur Majoor (a_majoor@hotmail.com), April 01, 2001

Answers

If you saw the Remote Control Bomber show, you saw JYW come about as close to total abject failure as anyone would want to see. I felt bad for the production company- they had to make an interesting show out of that. Building little R/C stuff from scratch is tough- and getting it right obviously takes more than ten hours. then again, if you really do manage to do it right, you've got another problem: A rogue aircraft in regulated air space. Airplanes are a tough choice on many levels.

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 02, 2001.

also did you see the glider episode, I don't even think an engine would have made those things fly any longer. plus it is dangerous like you said, I would hate to fall out

-- Robert (team Bullwinkle) (shocker_17@msn.com), April 02, 2001.

C'mon Roger, where's your sense of advenure? Enough thrust and that metal fixed wing glider would have flown like a great big bird! (It's amazing what you can get airborne if you've got enough JATO units.) Getting someone to actually PILOT the thing- Ah, there's the tricky part!

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 03, 2001.

A JATO will get just about anything airborne. Take a look at This Story for details!

Makes for a great read whilst waiting for team selection.

-- Michael (Canadian P.Eng.) (michael@mks-tech.com), April 04, 2001.

You know, maybe the "Barn Door" challenge should be added to the list. This follows on the old saying "with enough power, you could make a barn door fly".

Very well then, the challenge is to take a producer supplied barn door (the real thing, no less), and the team which can fly it the farthest in a controlled manner, wins.

The junkyard can be seeded with all kinds of fun stuff, like big block V-8 engines, dozens and dozens of small engines (ever see a Donier DO-X from the 1930's...12 X engines), maybe one JATO bottle...you know the drill.

Definitely one for remote control.

-- Arthur Majoor (a_majoor@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.

One of the most intresting flying machines has been described in " The Darwin Awards" . Go there and search for "Lawn Chair Man." The JATO story is there too.

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Michael's link to a JATO story, see "This Story" in his post above, is worht the effort. It's also 34 pages long, so be ready to read. Me? I can't wait to see a movie made from that particular telling of the story! (Thank you, Michael!)

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 05, 2001.

The scary part is that the Lawn Chair man story is real!

I really don't know about the rocket car, but the author is certainly a damn fine storyteller!

-- Michael (Canadian P.Eng.) (michael@mks-tech.com), April 05, 2001.