The Fly-Off for the 1999/00 Cessna/ONR Student Design/Build/Fly competition was held the weekend of April 15-16 at Cessna Aircraft Field in Wichita, Kansas. Teams from 28 universities had aircraft in attendance. All of the teams who submitted the required written reports attended the fly-off with aircraft, a "first" for this year and a 100% increase in the number of teams flying over last year.

I'd like to extend a special welcome to our foreign entrants, two teams from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, one team from Universita' degli Studi,La Sapienza,di Roma Italy, and two teams from Queen's University in Canada. All of the teams had to contend with "typical" (ie. windy) Kansas spring weather and even a light shower on Saturday morning. Even with the changing weather conditions the flight line was never empty for more than a few minutes, as most teams made several flight attempts during the weekend.

Utah State University became our first repeat winner in the contest history, by combining their "best written-report" score of 93.88 with a moderate cost of 6.14 and exemplary flights of 15, 15 and 14 liters for a final net score of 672.72, and a check for $2500.

Second place and $1500 went to the Oklahoma State University #2, the Ditch Witch, who combined a written score of 84.84, a cost of 6.37 and flights of 14, 14 and 16 liters (the highest single flight score) for a net score of 586.09.

Third place and $1000 went to the University of Illinois with a written score of 89.50, a cost of 6.34 and flights of 12, 12 and 13 liters totaling 522.32.

Detailed scoring for the written reports, best 3 sorties flown, and final results are listed below. (Note that a "flight" score of .01 was assigned to teams who did not achieve a scoring flight simply to get Excel to rank them according to their written scores and costs. No flights "scored" at less than 1 liter flown.)

The contest would not have been the resounding success it was without the help of many people too numerous to list here. I do want to especially thank Cessna Aircraft Company and the Office of Naval Research for their financial support and the AIAA Foundation and the Academy of Model Aeronautics for their sponsorship. Special thanks go to our hosts at Cessna for volunteering their weekend time to officiate at the contest

I'd like to once more congratulate all of this years participants and thank you for making this another successful and fun competition. Draft rules for the 2000/01 DBF competition should be up on the contest web site in less than month, so keep checking in. All of the DBF judges and sponsors thank you for your participation and look forward to seeing you again next year.

Again this year the on-site contest judges would like to recognize the efforts of all the participants by way of a number of "Special" awards, based on each teams "unique contribution" to the 1999/00 fly-off. This years judges special awards, in no particular order, are:

2000 ONR/Cessna/AIAA Foundation Design/Build/Fly

Special Awards

In order of the random draw

University of Illinois: Best Scale Award for modeling a CG4 World War II Troop Transport Glider.

METU/Hazerfen - Anatolian-Craft: Sponsors Heritage Award for the best imitation of a Cessna 170.

University of California, San Diego: Heritage Award, Jet Division, for the best imitation of a ME-262.

Cleveland State University: Life above the sea Award for teaching a manta ray to fly.

University of Buffalo: Truth in labeling Award for a plane that flew like its name, i.e. like a buffalo. It meandered off the runway and layed down on the prairie.

University of Arizona: The Borg-Warner Award for fatigue testing gear boxes.

Georgia Institute of Technology: Truth in Labeling Award # 2 for their name - Plan B.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Green Peace Award for finding a way to produce air pollution with an Electric motor.

University of Texas at Austin: Navy Carrier Arrival Award for meeting the runway with the greatest vertical speed.

METU/ETI: Rebuilder Award for the greatest number of major rebuilds in a single competition. Presented with an Alchemy citation for turning a large part of their red airplane into silver while turning a large part of their sponsor's gold into splinters.

Oklahoma State University # 2: The What's in a Name? Award for keeping the Ditch Witch out of the ditch - this year.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: The NASCAR Award for the most decals on a tail.

University of Central Florida: The Government Procurement Award for the highest rated cost.

University of Southern California: The Heritage Award, propeller division, for the best impression of a Gee Bee Racer.

Clarkson University: The Aeroelasticity Award for the best demonstration of a previously unknown degree of freedom in flight.

Universita' degli Studi, La Sapienza, di Roma: The Vida, Vida, Vida Award for the most enthusiastic signal of time to turn.

East Stroudsburg University: The Dual Mission Award for combining the characteristics of an F-18 and a Caribou.

Miami University: The Sidewinder Award for maintaining the greatest angle between the longitudinal axis of the airplane and the flight path.

Wichita State University: The Norm Abramson Award for the best display of precision woodwork.

West Virginia University: The Twiggie Award for the most anorexic body for their entry, "Wing on a Stick".

Oklahoma State University: The State Farm Good Neighbor Award for intentionally crashing their plane rather than endangering the spectators.

Utah State University: The Humble Pie Award for making the contest organizers eat their words about "No Repeat Winners".

New Mexico: The Lucy in the Sky Award for the best flying diamond.

Combined Queens # 1 and # 2: The Wake the Dead Award for the loudest hotel party.

Virginia Polytechnic and State University: The Training Flight Award for a good takeoff followed by a landing and a landing and a landing and a landing .... with a special Kangaroo Citation for the highest hop.

United States Military Academy: The Colorblindness Award for steadfastly maintaining that their orange airplane was a Grey Hog.

Syracuse University: The Hoover Award for the best vacuum cleaner with special notice of the most spectacular explosion of an impeller.

Queen's University # 1: The Restraint Award for confining all their 360 degree turns to the horizontal plane rather than the vertical plane this year.

Queen's University # 2: The Poulan Weed Eater Award for trimming the greatest area of Kansas prairie with a propeller.

And finally,

Chris Bovais: The Greatest Ratio of Bladder to Brain as evidences by his ability to stand on the flight line all day with only one short potty break.

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aokan@ae.metu.edu.tr

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  Last modified: Friday, 9 March 2001 13:25 (GMT +2)