NC State’s AIAA Design Build Fly (DBF) Team competed to the AIAA Design, Build, Fly competition last month, successfully completing multiple missions with this year’s DBF aircraft, Wolfeye.
This year marks the largest ever DBF Competition flyoff participation, with 868 university students on 81 teams attending onsite. The flyoff event was hosted by AIAA Corporate Member Raytheon in Tucson, Ariz. Teams from 14 countries, including 27 US states and the District of Columbia participated in the full DBF Competition, including submitting design reports and attending the flyoff.
This year, the team’s task was to design, build and test an aircraft to execute electronic warfare (EW) missions. Flight missions included staging of the aircraft, surveillance and jamming.
The goal was a balanced design possessing good demonstrated flight handling qualities and practical and affordable manufacturing requirements while providing a high vehicle performance.
Wolfeye was able to compete and fly in the 2023 competition after a catastrophic crash rendered the 2022 DBF team unable to compete. This year’s team (comprised of seven senior design students and several undergraduates), successfully completed their ground mission to test for structural deformation by placing weight on fuselage while wingtips are mounted to test fixture, and the first flight mission to complete three laps within the five minutes without carrying a payload. Wolfeye unfortunately crashed on the third attempt of their second mission. NC State DBF team placed 51st out of about 100 teams overall.
The 2024 AIAA DBF Competition will be held in April 2024 and hosted in Wichita, Kan., by Textron.