[apalrd]

Originally Posted by EricH

To be fair, the rules were pretty clear (another thing certain folks need to work on), and if there was a question of intent/spirit, you asked the rules committee directly (and knew who they were!) and publicly, and got the same type of response back, usually within a day or so unless it was a particularly complicated one or you were being difficult. None of this "We cannot perform design reviews" non-answer (or "See the definition of possession"--which is what I just asked about!).

I am not familiar with the SAE Aero series, but in Formula SAE, it is required for teams to submit a detailed analysis of their chassis design for safety and rules compliance review months before the competition. When the team arrives at competition, they just need to show the inspectors their approved SES and the inspectors only have to verify that the chassis is built to the SES for the team to pass the chassis safety section of the rules, and the team knows months ahead of time that their design will pass inspection (if they build it correctly). We are also encouraged to submit designs (including CAD images) when asking rules questions, when relevant, as we frequently have questions regarding the legality of a questionable design and it's just easier to directly ask if the design is legal and note which rules we are concerned with.