The team arrived in LA on Thursday, March 5th and promptly went to their hotel in Van Nuys, California, grabbing a late-night bite to eat at Denny’s before heading to bed. On Friday, the club registered and sent a brave contingent composed of faculty advisor Professor Walied Moussa, James Anderson, Mitch Bell, and Galen Long to obtain the aircraft at LAX. US Customs proved to be much less of a hassle than was expected and approval was granted without much delay. However, very unfortunately, the airplane was delayed in Toronto an extra day…meaning the club was not able to have their aircraft for their oral report presentation. However, only 5 points were lost and the team was still in the competition.
The oral report was deliverd quite capably and quite superbly by Aero’s technical experts Masoud Mashkournia, Benjamin Lafferty, Marc Shosteck, and Andrew Nielsen. Everything went well, except the absence of the airplane! Still in contention, the team remained confident that their airplane would arrive on the next day, allowing them to still compete on Sunday. With the oral report out of the way, most members took a well deserved trip to Hollywood!
The club started Saturday out by traveling to the Valley Flyer’s Airfield in Encino, CA. Despite not having an airplane, members wanted to take a look at the other airplanes and watch the first rounds of flight. The airfield was beautiful. With fresh cut green Californian grass, paved runways, and warm weather it was obvious that flying here would be much more enjoyable than flying back in Edmonton in the snow and cold weather and all. The first rounds saw teams trying to lift off no payload in them. This task proved difficult for most team as the airplanes were designed for lifting maximum weight and so the center of gravity for most planes were not optimally postitioned. Hence, there were some spectacular crashes witnessed!
After watching a couple of rounds the club went back to the hotel in Van Nuys and waited to hear what was going to happen with the airplane delivery. Arrangements had been made the day before to have the airplane shipped from LAX to Van Nuys as soon as it arrived from Toronto. After finding out that the truck was leaving LAX with the crate in toe, most members, relieved to hear about the pending successful arrival, left to Long Beach to spend the afternoon. Team leader Galen remained back to ensure the shipment was received alright.
In the evening,all teams met in one of the banquet rooms for the banquet. The banquet was followed by a presentation on UAV’s being built for the US Government. Team Faculty Advisor Dr. Moussa enjoyed the presentation particularly due to his interest in building his own UAV’s. Following the banquet and presentation, the team went outside to open the crate and assemble their aircraft. They put the decals on the airplane and made sure that the control surfaces were responding correctly. This night was particualrly memorable for the hospitality shown to our team by the hotel banquet room staff who brought out coffee on trays for the club as they worked on the airplane!
Waking early on Sunday morning (well really early due to the effect of daylight savings time taking effect over the night!) the team, airplane, and tools relocated to the flying field in Encino. In the mist of the early morning dew the team worked hard to assemble the aircraft and have it ready for first rounds of flight. Upon being technically inspected, they realized that their engine mount was not completely up to regulations for the competition and so a rushed change-over occured in order to fully pass the technical inspection. Fortunately, the team had made friends with a team from South Dakota which donated an extra wooden mount which fit very well. The team requested for a professional pilot to come over and check over the airplane. It just so happened that the team was paired with a “grandmaster” of R/C airplane flying. He was able to prep the airplane and get it ready to compete. Due to time constraints and some unfortunate events the team was only able to compete in one round but was still impressed with how they the plane flew. After the competition the pilot successfully flew the airplane with max weight, something that the team was very proud of (just too bad it didn’t happen during the competition!)
To celebrate their semi-success the team all went to hang out at Santa Monica and then have a nice supper at a Persian restaurant close-by. The following day, Monday, March 9th, the team boarded the very machine that they came to compete with (except a much larger model!) and flew back to Edmonton. In doing so, the team transitioned from +20·C to a rather frigid, unwelcoming -35·C. Oh if only the trip had been a week longer!
