
Updates List: What's new
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/Raytheon Missile Systems 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.
2011/12 Contest Season: 16th
![]() |
Writing
the Rules: An inside Look at the AIAA Student Design/Build/Fly
Competition, C. Bovais, Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC; D. Levy,
Cessna Aircraft Company, Wichita, KS; G. Page, ITT Advanced Engineering
Sciences, Alexandria, VA; S. Powell, , Manchester, TN; M. Selig,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL; and T. Zickuhr,
Cessna Aircraft Company, Wichita, KS. Presented at then 6th AIAA Aviation
Technology, Integration and Operations Conference (ATIO),
AIAA-2006-7832, Sept 2006. This paper distributed with permission of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. (9/28/07) |
![]() |
Check your e-mail! If you did not receive the Team Welcome and Q&A #1 e-mails then your team supplied e-mail address is not working! Check your e-amil addresses you supplied on your entry form and if needed send a correction ASAP. It is the team's responsibility to make sure they receive all DBF e-mail. Failure to receive updates/changes due to your e-mail system will not be accepted as a reason for failure to comply with contest rules/revisions. Check to make sure that all of the e-mail accounts you provided are set to allow e-mail from the contest officials. (11/14/07) |
Resources for DBF Teams
Companies making special offers to AIAA DBF
teams are being listed here. These offers are unsolicted and are not officially
endorsed by the DBF Team Organizers, this website or the AIAA. Engineering or
model airplane related resources will be passed along, and teams can decide
whether or not to take advantage of these offers.

SolidWorks
will sponsor your team by offering SolidWorks for use with the AIAA DBF
contest. Type in "AIAA DBF" when filling out the online form.
(11/10/06)

RCAT Systems is
offering a 30% discount on telemetry units, electronics & associated
accessories. For more information, call or email education@rcatsystems.com
(valid until June 1, 2007) (11/27/06)

MSC software
is providing a special offer to AIAA DBF teams for their engineering
simulation software. Visit their Academic website to obtain additional
information. (12/19/08) Links: Unofficial DBF Web Pages (General and Teams) - Ordered by posting
date.
R
Bramlette 2010 DBF Pictures (added 4/26/10)
R
Bramlette 2011 DBF Pictures (added 5/2/11))
M
Ciuryla 2011 DBF Pictures (added 4/25/11)
Rip's
2011 DBF Pictures (added 5/13/11)
Past Contests
2010-2011 Contest Information
2009-2010 Contest Information
2008-2009 Contest Information
2007-2008 Contest Information
2006-2007 Contest Information
2005-2006 Contest Information
2004-2005 Contest Information
2003-2004 Contest Information
2002-2003 Contest Information
2001-2002 Contest Information
2000-2001 Contest Information
1999-2000 Contest Information
1998-1999 Contest Information
1997-1998 Contest Information
1996-1997 Contest Information
The members of the AIAA Applied Aerodynamics, Aircraft Design, Design Engineering and Flight Test Technical Committees and the AIAA Foundation look forward to your participation. Please direct questions by e-mail to the DBF Contest Director at (director@aiaadbf.org).
[Top] [AIAA Student Design/Build/Fly
Competition homepage] [AIAA Homepage]
Webmaster: dbfwebmaster@aiaadbf.org