For rubber -- Can check out here also and compare total costs including shipping

http://www.freeflightsupplies.co.uk/index.php/products/rubber


He has a lot of other stuff for free flight requirements

Anyone wants plans to scratch build indoor rubber -- I have several plans of models that are suitable for those who have not dabbled in indoor free flight rubber duration before.

And can give some inputs on building them and trimming.

There are roughly 3 1/2 months remaining for 2017 and everyone over here (including me) is asking whether we have 2017 sweepstakes skipping the 2016 sweepstakes.
The first post is making me laugh like a retarded seal at hhow foolish I am.

No offence.

Thanks mods.

Quote from: rcrcnitesh on May 17, 2016, 05:48:22 PM
Okay, I am going to make the first move.

What happened to the 2017 sweepstakes?

Sent from a Mango using a Knife

@rcrcnitesh,
I think none of us read your above post carefully.
You actually wanted to know about 2017, and here we are, all still discussing 2016 

The correct answer to your query is:
"Nothing happened to the 2017 sweepstakes. Why? Because even 2017 hasn't happened yet" 

@iamahuman,
Thanks for splitting the thread. Perhaps you could correct the year.
Despite the joke being on himself, we don't want to burst Nitesh's seal, do we? 
Regards.

Quote from: rcrcnitesh on September 22, 2016, 03:10:37 PM
There are roughly 3 1/2 months remaining for 2017

I think rcrcnitesh is one year ahead of us.

After my impassioned, loquacious, 1000 word defence of the existing Sweepstakes vs Competition policy, the Man himself has expressed an inclination towards competition.
So now I have to do an 'Aaya Ram Gaya Ram'
Aaaargh.

But seriously, on this platform in its present avatar, I dont think it is possible to conduct a meaningful competition in say aerobatics, speed, concours d'elegance, helis, multirotors, cars, boats etc.
Freeflight duration in rubber/ glider/ hlg may be the only events suitable for a competition (thanks to youtube, no need for local FAI observers!)

And this is a predominantly RC oriented forum. FF enthusiast members could be counted on the fingers of one hand...

Increasing the number of prizes is obviously a good idea. But unless the sponsor pool is large enough, the prizes would become insignificant.

So far, only a couple of 10k prizes for sweepstakes, and about half a dozen comp prizes of 1-2k each seem possible.

Like hear from members. Only 4-5 responders so far...

In my opinion the purpose is to encourage many builds and activity in the forum and the sweepstakes is the best option.
If it is competition, people will not involve once they see expert builders logs.

Quote from: sanjayrai55 on July 18, 2016, 01:53:37 PM
And, it will be a change from reading about buying and selling

Sent from my Mi 4i using Tapatalk

ha ha well said sir

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

Quote from: vibranthobbies on September 09, 2016, 11:19:21 AM
If anwar sir is busy, I would like to take the responsibility of organizing "RC India 7th Year Sweepstakes"
I will sponsor 10K worth of items purchase at RCHyper to one winner.

Interested LHS can sponsor something to the winners to make this sweepstakes more attractive.
However, Dear LHS
Please note we shall not force the participant to buy some item from our stores for the build. 

Expecting response from anwar sir and my fellow LHS

Kumaran

Kudos ! Kumaran sir

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

Hi all members,
Did you know that in the Red Bull Air Races, there is no prize money! Only Honour.
I don't know whether people compete on their own, or with sponsor backing...

Nevertheless, prize money is an incentive.
As were the 20k prizes in the RCI Sweepstakes.
There was quite a lot of response.
Then some cooling off, as members (belatedly?) realised it was a sweepstakes, not a competition!

But I'm beginning to wonder:
How many members are interested, either way?
I suspect that many small prizes would elicit far less response than a single prize of 50-100k.
And that a sweepstakes of 50-100k would defeat a performance competition easily.

@anwar sir,
So it boils down to what you/RCI want to achieve

Perhaps you could do a poll on
1. Would you participate in a sweepstakes?
2. Would you participate in a competition?
3. Would you participate in a combined sweepstakes cum competition?

Iamahuman could indicate the number of entries in the last 2-3 years
It may be worthwhile assessing the level of interest before continuing...

While waiting for responses, if any (none in last 24 hours!),
there is at least my online copy of RCSD to fall back upon...

Talking of prize money for competitions, incentives, etc.
I have been a forum member of hippocketaeronautics.com for a couple of years now and was mentored by record holders in my free flight endeavours.
That forum has a lot of info on various competitions. None of them has any prize money. The only goal is to better the existing record.

Off track from this thread,
but my very first post on HPA elicited an immediate response from the legendary Lee Hines.

Different milieu, different concept of achievement, i guess...

RCI Sweepstakes was quite successful.
What can we try now?
Regards.

I don't know exactly but according to me,
Normal sweepstakes is the way to go...
If it is for competitions, many newbies may face difficulties.
This was just opinion.
Regards

Quite right, actually after all of the discussions I also feel that sweepstakes is the way to go. I vote for sweepstakes too.

Aah, how opinions change!
After all that criticism of lottery last year, (and just when Anwar sir said 'Okay, let's have a competition too'), feedback now indicates that members think Sweepstakes is better!

Waiting for last year's data from a moderator about
1. How many participants
2. How many models
3. How many entries after multipliers

How many potential participants would it need to interest potential sponsors?
I mean commercial sponsors of significant prizes, not just well meaning individuals.
What would motivate members? (2 x 20k did motivate them, even if it was a lottery)

I see that competition means 'build quality/intricacy' to some and 'performance' to others.
Build quality/intricacy is subjective. Perhaps better left to sweepstakes as additional entries, depending on scratch built, kit, arf, multi engine, multi wing, flapping wing etc. I dont know what would be the equivalent for boats, cars, DIY projects etc...

As of now, the position (for sweepstakes) seems to be:
1. 10k worth of goods by Anwar sir
2. 10k worth of goods from rchyper by kumaran sir
3. 5k worth of goods from quadkopter by satya sir
4. An airframe from sanjayrai sir (for best coro?)

And for FF competition (performance), 2k worth of goods from any LHS For
1. Best duration over 1 minute in rubber power
2. Best duration over 2 minutes in glider (50m towline, or 10m histart)
3. Best duration over 30 sec in HLG/DLG

Feedback requested soon, so that rules can be frozen by 30th Sep.

Happy participation!

I think that a sweepstake is the more easier route where judges wont have to sit and contemplate on who to award the prize and why. Although I feel there should be some factor considering the skill required to make the models in play. A sweepstakes is only somewhat fair as the more models qualified as entries the more chances you get to win thus build more and this might lead quantity of builds rather than the quality of them.
Also if experts start building multiple models and win only because of having more chances at winning, then the people who can truly use the prize money to kick start their journey in this hobby wont get it. For example, Jana sir who was one of the winners of the 6th sweepstakes is already well established and has a hobby shop. People like KiranRC who actually can use the prize to progress in the hobby should receive it. So a sweepstakes that factors all this when distributing the prize money would be good.

Quote from: rcrcnitesh on September 22, 2016, 03:10:37 PM
There are roughly 3 1/2 months remaining for 2017 and everyone over here (including me) is asking whether we have 2017 sweepstakes skipping the 2016 sweepstakes.
The first post is making me laugh like a retarded seal at hhow foolish I am.

You did get me too, and took us all into the future    

I have changed the topic name to 2016 !

Quote from: K K Iyer on September 24, 2016, 08:16:07 PM
As of now, the position (for sweepstakes) seems to be:
1. 10k worth of goods by Anwar sir
2. 10k worth of goods from rchyper by kumaran sir
3. 5k worth of goods from quadkopter by satya sir
4. An airframe from sanjayrai sir (for best coro?)

And for FF competition (performance), 2k worth of goods from any LHS For
1. Best duration over 1 minute in rubber power
2. Best duration over 2 minutes in glider (50m towline, or 10m histart)
3. Best duration over 30 sec in HLG/DLG

What about a 2 min (maybe even just 1 min) flight by a freeflight or RC model, using solar power alone, without any storage battery? Would deserve a 5k or 10k prize, no?

Will anyone sponsor this please?

sir,
As i have a solar plane already built.
Flies at around 2 cell voltage,
i can say that it takes around 3-4 proper months for design process.
You need the best of all the worlds. The best panels, The Most damn efficient motor while being light at the same time....
http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=3069
If you click on more pics, you can check my plane out.
I had to make tweaks to everything in that plane.(scaled up, better airfoil, weight cutting, much more efficient surfaces).
Maybe solar flight competition is not feasible. just maybe.
I bought Maxeon c60 panels (The most efficient there are @21% efficiency)
i bought and built with balsa and carbon fiber.
I was first trying for freeflight solar but, that was much more harder. (there seem to be very less high efficiency brushed motors out there {especially in india})
So this may not work out.
This was just my little bit of opinion.
Regards.
P.S- my total expenditure was above 6K INR (excluding the tx/rx and esc)

Please note;
my plane does not directly use solar power to fly.
There are 4 lipo batteries each @ 1cell 500mah.
While the panels charge 2 of these batteries, i fly on two, then there is a swap of batteries.
I am still working on swapping the batteries mid-air.
Regards

Hurry. Last few days to sponsor solar powered flight!

Quote from: K K Iyer on September 25, 2016, 09:53:56 PM

Quote from: K K Iyer on September 24, 2016, 08:16:07 PM
As of now, the position (for sweepstakes) seems to be:
1. 10k worth of goods by Anwar sir
2. 10k worth of goods from rchyper by kumaran sir
3. 5k worth of goods from quadkopter by satya sir
4. An airframe from sanjayrai sir (for best coro?)

And for FF competition (performance), 2k worth of goods from any LHS For
1. Best duration over 1 minute in rubber power
2. Best duration over 2 minutes in glider (50m towline, or 10m histart)
3. Best duration over 30 sec in HLG/DLG

What about a 2 min (maybe even just 1 min) flight by a freeflight or RC model, using solar power alone, without any storage battery? Would deserve a 5k or 10k prize, no?

Will anyone sponsor this please?

I gather from Anwar sir that in 2015 there were about 65 models from about 40 participants.
But that led to over 170 entries after multiplier!

This year's thread has responses from less than a dozen members.

I wonder if the prize sponsors would be interested in such a small audience?

I suppose that when the sweepstakes are launched, people will automatically participate.....

Yeah.... i am eagerly waiting for official announcement hope others too.......