Pilot selection

[Alejandro]

how do you select the ones that are going to drive the car that you built with your bare hands?

We have a nice shifter Kart, and that´s where we preselect 8 pilots. Then those eight have the oportunity to drive the last year car.

I think that pilot training is very important for a good performance at the competition.
(The pilots of our last year car drove it before competition no more than 20 minutes, and on our first year car one of the pilots drove it by the first time at the endurance..jeje)

Alejandro Rondon
Universidad Simon Bolivar
www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve (http://www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve)

[Alejandro]

how do you select the ones that are going to drive the car that you built with your bare hands?

We have a nice shifter Kart, and that´s where we preselect 8 pilots. Then those eight have the oportunity to drive the last year car.

I think that pilot training is very important for a good performance at the competition.
(The pilots of our last year car drove it before competition no more than 20 minutes, and on our first year car one of the pilots drove it by the first time at the endurance..jeje)

Alejandro Rondon
Universidad Simon Bolivar
www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve (http://www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve)

[ben]

We're lucky enough to have older FSAE cars still running at our uni. We're also only an hours drive from the FStudent venue - Bruntingthorpe.

We give everyone who wants to drive at competition a drive in the car. The first session last year saw everyone get two 10 lap stints and we had a British GT driver observing. He wrote feedback and we repeated this type of session about 4 times until the new car was built.

As a non-driving race engineer, me and the GT driver selected the drivers and then we did event specific testing when the new car was ready.

Ben

University of Birmingham
www.ubracing.co.uk (http://www.ubracing.co.uk)

[Alfonso Ochoa]

Veo que tas preocupado....

Alfonso Ochoa Vega
cabezota311@hotmail.com
F-SAE USB Team, Venezuela

[Alejandro]

hey dude. We are building our 3rd car and the second one is the one that is runing. Sadly we use the first one like a "Chassis Shop" store.(But that is about to change)

We also have friends that drive Formula Ford and they can give us a hand with the training. But I think that trainig first in a Kart give you an idea for the ones that really could be a good driver or to rule out the ones that really sucks. Our trainig course is a Parking lot of 150 x 150 meters. I ve heard that UTA, CORNELL... practice almost every week..
One of the coolest thing we have done is too beat a Subaru 450hp WRX and a Ferrari 348 in 100 meters aceleration..

Alejandro Rondon
Universidad Simon Bolivar
www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve (http://www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve)

[James Waltman]

We like to try out new technology so we have been using this ultra advanced computer program to train our drivers.


Check it out (http://www.shockwave.com/sw/content/spyhunter)

Team members with the highest scores get to drive at competition.

James Waltman
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/
Vehicle Research Institute at
Western Washington University

[Alejandro]

Nice program. Do you have the license of that. I dont wanna get in trouble.

By the way.
Does anyone have a good picture that would like to share of an F-SAE car on oversteer or understeer. Is for our faculty speech in a Congress of automotive technology.. Washington Faculty will be there too.

fsaealejandro@cantv.net

Alejandro Rondon
Universidad Simon Bolivar
www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve (http://www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve)

[Denny Trimble]

Here's a picture of some oversteer...

http://students.washington.edu/dennyt/ohstate.jpg

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

[DoItDoug]

At Virginia Tech, we try to drive every weekend, whether it's for testing or driver training. We even go out on weekday evenings as long as the parking lots are empty and we don't get too many noise complaints.

Every senior gets to drive the car and show their stuff during the fall and early spring. For the month or so before competition, the top few drivers drive and practice as much as possible in their respective events. Even the underclass volunteers get to drive a bit as long as they're putting in the work. This seems to work well and keeps everyone happy!

How often do other teams get to drive for practice/testing? What's your biggest limiting factor on driving time?

Doug Temple
'02 VT FSAE
www.vtmotorsports.com (http://www.vtmotorsports.com)

[Denny Trimble]

We have a summer driving program, where anybody who's around can drive the car. This usually ends up being 5-8 people. Then in Fall, we let the new people try out a few weekends, then we have a driver cut. This Sunday we'll be taking the 6 fastest drivers (endurance course), in order to give those people the most seat time in the car over winter. Then in Spring we'll try out for individual events. Also, this year we're starting a "junior drive team", for those youngsters who don't make the cut but will be around next year and show the potential to improve. It's up to them to keep the '02 car running http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

The biggest limiting factor for our drive time is the number of drivers (why we're cutting it down to 6 now), and keeping the cars running while designing and building the new car. Homework and midterms? Don't ask.

University of Washington Formula SAE ('98, '99, '03, '04)

[Alejandro]

"this year we're starting a "junior drive team", for those youngsters who don't make the cut but will be around next year and show the potential to improve. It's up to them to keep the '02 car running "

I like that idea but in our case with the 125cc kart we have. Besides our biggest limiting factor is normally related to a failure, bending, shortcircuit...and shortcircuit... But the reliability of the car has been improving since we started practicing almost every 2 or 3 times a month..

Nice donuts... But way too oversteer..

Alejandro Rondon
Universidad Simon Bolivar
www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve (http://www.formulasae.grupos.usb.ve)