Cessna/ONR Student Design/Build/Fly Competition:
The AIAA through the Applied Aerodynamics, Aircraft Design, Design Engineering and Flight Test Technical Committees and the AIAA Foundation invites all university students to participate in the Cessna/ONR student Design/Build/Fly competition. The contest will provide a real-world aircraft design experience for engineering students by giving them the opportunity to validate their analytic studies.
Student teams will 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.
Mission Profile:
Teams must complete the flight missions as outlined in the mission matrix below. Teams will have a maximum of 5 flight attempts. A flight attempt is defined as advancing the throttle “stick” for take-off. The best Single Flight Score from each of 2 different mission types will be summed for the team's Total Flight Score.
In the event that, due to time or facility limitations, it is not possible to allow all teams to have the maximum number of flight attempts, the contest committee reserves the right to ration and/or schedule flights. The exact determination of how to ration flights will be made on the contest day based on the number of entries, weather, and field conditions.
Each team's overall score will be computed from their Written Report Score, Total Flight Score, and the Rated Aircraft Cost using the formula:
SCORE =
Written Report Score * Total Flight Score
Rated Aircraft Cost
Mission Task Matrix
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Mission |
Description |
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General Mission Information · Aircraft must fit in a 2-ft wide by 1-ft high by 4-ft long (interior dimensions) box. Note: The aircraft does not need to “fold” to fit in the box, but may employ “plug-in” joints for rapid assembly/disassembly. All electrical connections should be keyed so they cannot be misassembled. Tape may be used as a non-structural “latch” to hold components in place, such as taping a wing joint when using a plug-in spar arrangement to keep the wing from sliding loose. · Teams must select one of the following missions for each flight. Teams may select a different mission for each of their scoring flight attempts. · Take-off distance is 150 ft wheels off the runway. · On landing the aircraft must land on the runway (but may roll off) to obtain a score for that flight. · All payloads must be adequately secured using mechanical means. Tape and Velcro are not acceptable forms of restraint. · Maximum mission time is 10 minutes. |
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Fire Fight Heavy Lift/Slow Flight |
Fire Bomber DF = 2.0 · Aircraft will begin the mission time empty.
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The flight mission will consist of two sorties. · Maximum allowed aircraft water capacity is 4 liters. (Aircraft will be emptied then filled to overflow during the tech inspection. Total volume must be 4 liters or less.) · Teams will load the aircraft during the mission from four 2-liter plastic “soda” bottles. Teams may use gravity loading or “pumped” loading. Soda bottles may NOT be pressurized to assist loading. · On all laps flown the aircraft must complete a single 360o turn in the direction opposite of the base and final turns on the downwind leg of each lap. · Water may only be dumped during the downwind leg between the upwind and downwind turn markers/flags. Aircraft must fly slow enough to allow sufficient time for the water to be emptied. · Maximum dump orifice diameter is 0.5 inch. (Measured at the exit so it may be easily verified during the tech inspection). · The pilot must call “Dump On” and “Dump Off” so the observer judge can easily verify that the water dump is restricted to the downwind leg.
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Early or Late water dumping,
including inadvertent release of water during a hard landing, will incur a
3-min time penalty per occurrence. · A time penalty of 3 minutes will be added for an incomplete second lap. If the second lap is not attempted or the 360o turn is not completed the second lap will be timed as “incomplete.” · The weight of the water will be determined by the starting and ending weight of the team’s ground-based storage “tanks,” taken when entering and leaving the flight box.
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Single Flight Score is: |
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Ferry High Speed Flight |
Ferry DF = 1.0 · Aircraft must take-off, complete four laps, and land. The aircraft will have no water payload for this flight · On all laps flown the aircraft must complete a 360o turn in the direction opposite of the base and final turns on the downwind leg of each lap.
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Single Flight Score is: |