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Great Plains Students Compete in Aircraft Competition

Posted by admin in High School News on May 24th, 2012 | no responses

Great Plains Technology Center students recently competed in the OSU Speedfest II competition April 28th and 29th. Instructor Mike Farrell says Great Plains Frigates team made an impressive showing, coming in 5th place in the competition. This plane was built by Josh Sorenson and Desmond See. The plane is a Great Panes Uproar with an OS LA 46 engines and is controlled with a Tactic 5 channel radio.

To see the maiden flight of the plane, click on the following YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8rLSRclQGU This is the short version of the maiden flight and was edited so that is is under 2 minutes length so that it can be entered into the video portion of the competition.

Speedfest is an exciting, high-speed aircraft competition which is intended to foster enthusiasm for aviation and unmanned aircraft design, and was created in 2011 with Speedfest I.

Speedfest II introduced two new racing classes: Alpha (Advanced) Class which for the first time was open to all collegiate teams, and India (Invitational) class, which is open to high school teams. A total of 10 teams competed in Speedfest II, including well over 100 students and teachers. Speedfest II also featured demonstrational flights including: aerobatics of helicopters and airplanes, giant scale warbirds, scale jets, a helicopter flying on autopilot, small scale electric warbird combat, and flyovers of several manned aircraft. The official gate count for Speedfest II was over 900 people, which represents a 20% growth from Speedfest I.

India Class teams were challenged with the fabrication of an Uproar airplane kit with a .46 cubic inch, 2-stroke engine. The planes flew head-to-head in heats of up to 3 planes at a time. All India class teams were successful in bringing competitive airplanes to the event, and the spread of scores between 1st place and 6th was only 11%.

Final Standings for India Class:

  1. Oklahoma Christian Saints
  2. Clinton High School Red Barons
  3. Meridian Technology Center Pegasus
  4. Yukon High School Millers
  5. Great Plains Tech Center Frigates
  6. Claremore High School Zebras
  7. Francis Tuttle Tech Falcons

To learn more about Speedfest visit:  www.speedfest.okstate.edu.

The Great Plains Frigates received more good news recently. They have been awarded a 2012 AEP Teacher Vision Grant from AEP/PSO. The funds from the grant will be used towards the construction of the next aircraft for Speedfest 2013.



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