Congratulations to the 2010-2011 DBF Team finishing 3rd
| Event Date: | April 21, 2011 |
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The 15th annual AIAA Cessna/Raytheon Missile Systems Student Design/Build/Fly Competition was held this past weekend (April 15-17th) at TIMPA field in Tucson, Arizona, hosting 82 teams from across the world.
The Purdue team, whose members include Dr. Ebenezer Gnanamanickam (Course Instructor), Neal Allgood (TA for the course), Nick Setar (Pilot), Frank Prior, Tom Finn, Dan Murzyn, Landon Baur, Bill O’Neill, Jason Iafigliola, Lee Wiwi, Corbin Krenk, Jordan Towles-Moore, Daniel Ho, Raheel Mazhary, Tom Tarlton, Kent O’Neill, Nicolaus Caniza, Andy Yu, Stephen Bachhuber, Parithi Govindaraju, Zaid Alami, and Di Mo, placed 3rd out of the 82 teams with their "Golfstream" plane.
The objective of the competition was to create a "Soldier Portable UAV" had to fit in a commercially available suitcase meeting airline carry-on requirements. The first mission was a “dash to critical target” with no payload followed by an Ammo Re-supply mission (steel bar payload) and a Medical Supply mission (golf balls). As usual, the total score is the product of the flight score and written report score. Purdue's team scored second overall on the comprehensive technical report with a score of 97.5%. The aircraft was one of the lightest aircraft at the competition with a total system weight of 5 oz.
The intercollegiate Design, Build, And Fly competition places student teams against one another to design and fabricate a remotely controlled, electric powered aircraft that can best meet various specified mission profiles. The design must possess excellent flight characteristics in all phases of the competition while being practical and affordable to manufacture.
Each year, the DBF competition requires the universities to field an aircraft that fulfills different mission objectives. These missions require teams to think creatively and create innovative designs that optimize for performance. By developing a reliable comprehensive design process and testing program, Purdue’s DBF team has placed in the top three for two consecutive years.