Congratulations to the 2009-2010 DBF Team finishing 3rd!

The 14th annual AIAA Cessna/Raytheon Missile Systems Student Design/Build/Fly Competition was held this past weekend (April 16-18th) at Cessna AirField in Wichita, Kansas, hosting 69 teams.

The Purdue team of Neal Allgood (TA for the course),Shane Hartman, Bill O'Neill, Nickolai Belakovski, Eric Williams, Dr. John Sullivan (Course Instructor), Tim Maes, Nick Setar, Brandon Cabot, John Schutzius, Frank Prior, and James Polivka placed 3rd out of the 69 teams with their "B'Euler Up" plane.

The team was first in and out of inspection, finished 3rd overall on the report score (94.25%), had the 3rd lightest system weight (7.5 lbs), and had the 3rd fastest mission one time (62 sec) and the 2nd fastest mission three time (121 sec).

The DBF Competition places student teams against one another to design, fabricate, and demonstrate the flight capabilities of an unmanned, electric powered, radio controlled aircraft which can best meet the specified mission profile. The goal is a balanced design possessing good demonstrated flight handling qualities and practical and affordable manufacturing requirements while providing a high vehicle performance.

To encourage innovation and maintain a fresh design challenge for each new years participants, the design requirements and performance objective will be updated for each new contest year. The changes will provide new design requirements and opportunities, while allowing for application of technology developed by the teams from prior years.

For more information about the AIAA's DBF competition, please see the official website by clicking here.