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| You have to be looking closely to see these delicately built airplanes that are floating through the atmosphere through Thursday at West Baden Springs Hotel. |
Careful around these things. They can potentially be
destroyed merely by walking too fast
while steering these fragile masterpieces.
By and large, though, these amazing aircraft feel right at
home in the airspace of West Baden Springs Hotel’s atrium. That’s why the
Academy of Model Aeronautics is here early this week for the F1D World Championship, bringing 14 teams from all over the globe to French Lick Resort
to launch these opaque, light-as-a-feather airplanes that are wonders of
science and equally spectacular in aesthetics.
They refract light like a rainbow and flutter through the
air like a butterfly. They weigh in at 1.4 grams — roughly equal to the weight
of a dollar bill plus a paper clip. They gain their propulsion thanks to a
rubber band, and the best species of these creations will stay airborne for
close to 30 minutes.
Wild, huh? We’ve got more questions about what exactly makes
these masterpieces float on.
Why West Baden?
“You want dead-calm air, hopefully,” says Steve Brown, the contest director and a former three-time world champion himself in this event.
And for maximum stillness, the hotel shuts off its climate-control mechanism in
the atrium during the competition. “It’s very, very important,” Brown adds. “The
air quality is the most important
thing in this hobby in terms of competitions. These models are very subject to
any variations in air quality.” Even just a small patch of warm air or the
current from an open window is enough to make planes drift, veer or turn upside
down.
By AMA standards, the West Baden Springs Hotel atrium is a
Category 3 facility, with a ceiling height of just under 100 feet. The group
travels far and wide to compete in venues that can accommodate in both size and
availability — football stadiums in Tennessee and Idaho (fellow Category 3s),
blimp hangars (Category 4, the largest) and even an underground salt mine in
Romania.
They’ve been everywhere, but the plush vibe of West Baden
does stand out. Tim Hayward-Brown, one of the competitors, was surprised to
find carpet in the atrium and joked that he should have brought his slippers to
match the homey vibe.
“This is probably the most beautiful venue that they have
(competitions in),” said Tim, who spent nearly 30 hours in planes and airports
on the way here from Adelaide, Australia. “But when I walked in here, it felt
like it was all worth it, you know? Absolutely beautiful place to be.”
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| Tim Hayward-Brown of Adelaide, Australia, explains the construction of his plane that required 25-30 hours to build. This competition draws model plane architects from Canada to Poland to Japan, and competitors use custom-built carry-on boxes to transport their model planes when flying in big planes. |
How’s the plane
built?
All the physics of it get a little mind-boggling, because
this is some high science. (A lot of the competitors here tend to be engineers,
physicists and airline pilots.) But the easy answer is that it all comes down
to materials. And precision.
The bodies of these planes are made from balsa wood, thanks
to its light properties (other types of wood such as oak are about 10 times
heavier), and the wood is so select that it’s cut by only one or two people in the
world. Some planes use bracing wire made from tungsten that is one-third the
thickness of a human hair. The planes are covered in a Mylar film so thin that the
planes look like little apparitions when they’re airborne.
Wound rubber motors power these planes, but this isn’t any
old rubberband that comes on your newspaper. Brown likens the rubber to a
vintage wine — “the very best batch of it was made in May 1999,” he says — and
most of the people in this competition are still using (and conserving) that
precious rubber 19 years later.
That rubber contains the most power and the best torque
curve, a must-have in a competition where it’s not just a matter of inches, but
micro-inches.
“People have very elaborate equipment to test the rubber and
then test individual motors within the rubber, so they’re cutting them out of a
strip of rubber into little tiny pieces and tying them into loops, so now you’re
measuring the motor weights in terms of thousandths of a gram per inch,” Brown
said. “You have very precise cutters, and you have weighing equipment that is very
precise, and you have people that develop tiny, tiny knots that are so small
you can hardly see them. Like the tip of a pencil small.”
And while there’s a slew of size and weight specs for
competitors to follow, there is a little freedom to let personality shine
through, as Hayward-Brown said while pointing out the pointed fin on his plane’s
fuselage.
“Being from Australia, I try to make a bit distinctive and
have the great white shark fin,” said Tim, who estimated it takes 25-30 hours
to craft his planes; some models require up to 60 hours to construct. “There’s
a bit of flexibility in design, and people like that.”
How do they fly?
These planes are designed to fly in a circle, and once they’re
launched, they can’t be controlled. But they can be steered, and that’s why you’ll
see competitors using balloons or long poles to guide them.
Rules of the six-round competition are simple: Whichever model
stays in the air the longest wins. The competition is running through Thursday
afternoon (here’s the schedule), and half of the atrium remains open for anyone to come watch, free of
charge.
It’s a quirky little show, complete with some competitors
wearing jackets of their home country, like the Olympics. You could also
describe it as a little mesmerizing, thanks to the minimalist properties of
these flights.
Said Hayward-Brown: “When it’s flying, I actually find it
quite a peaceful feel. It doesn’t make noise like other airplanes, it’s just
the minimum airplane you could have. There’s almost nothing there. It’s kind of
the basic DNA of flight, you know?”