Kolkata, Sep 2 (IANS) The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has put up a strong performance at the Design/Build/Fly Competition organised by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) at Wichita, Kansas. This was IIT Kharagpur’s first appearance in the prestigious event.
Competing against 98 university teams, 1,179 students and participants from 12 countries, Team IIT Kharagpur delivered an impressive maiden performance. It was ranked 39th globally, 5th in Asia, and got the highest total score among all Indian teams.
In just four months, the 21-member student team from IIT Kharagpur designed, built, tested, and successfully flew a complete aircraft — taking their engineering from the campus to the global stage.
“From aerodynamics, structures and propulsion to avionics, CAD, manufacturing and flight validation, the students transformed concepts into a flight-ready aircraft under demanding timelines — demonstrating the power of hands-on engineering, teamwork and innovation.
The achievement was enabled by the strong support of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Aerial Robotics Kharagpur (ARK) Lab, along with the mentorship of Prof Arnab Roy, Anup Ghosh, Naba Kumar Peyada, Prof Sandeep Saha and Prof Somesh Kumar,” the institute said.
More than just a ranking, it is IIT Kharagpur’s first footprint on one of the world’s most demanding student aircraft design competitions — and another step forward in strengthening a culture of experiential learning, innovation and excellence in aerospace engineering, it said.
This was the 30th year of the competition. Of the 175 proposals submitted and judged, 102 teams were invited to submit a design report for the next phase of the competition. A total of 98 teams submitted design reports and 89 teams attended the fly-off (17 international teams).
Over 1200 students, faculty, and guests were present. Of the 89 teams in attendance, 83 completed the tech inspection. Of the 197 official flight attempts, 143 resulted in a successful score, with 73 teams achieving at least one successful flight score and 17 teams completing all missions (one ground and three flight missions).
The quality of the teams, their readiness to compete, and the execution of the flights was exceptional, the AIAA said.
The year’s contest theme was a Banner Towing Bush Plane. The first mission was a test flight requiring the aircraft to complete three laps within five minutes. The second mission was a charter flight with the score based on the number of passengers (rubber ducks) and cargo (hockey pucks) carried plus the number of laps flown and battery capacity.
The final mission was a banner towing flight with the score dependent upon banner length, the number of laps flown, and RAC (wingspan).
Teams were also required to complete a ground mission demonstrating the efficiency of loading and unloading passengers and then converting the airplane into a banner-towing configuration. First place went to the University of Ljubljana, while the University of Washington-Seattle was the first runners-up. The third place went to the University of California, Los Angeles.
–IANS
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