Contact Information:Patrick Haley520-626-7094[email protected]
A group of UA engineering students has designed and built a radio-controlled airplane to fly at a national competition in April.
The students are members of the UA student chapter of AIAA (the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics), and the contest is the Cessna/ONR Student Design/Build/Fly Competition that will be held April 26 to 28 in Wichita, Kan.
The UA airplane isn't the usual off-the-shelf hobby plane that flies at radio control club fields. That's because it has to do a lot more than just get off the ground and stay in the air. In fact, when the students take the plane to a local flying field they attract a lot of attention from veteran RC pilots, says UA AIAA club President Patrick Haley.
"People who have been flying for 30 years will come over and say they have never seen a plane like this one," says Haley, a mechanical engineering junior. "They're the first to cheer when it gets into the air because it's such a radical design."
It has to be. This year's Design/Build/Fly rules call for the plane to fly two laps around a course unloaded. Then it has to fly two more laps while carrying 10 to 24 regulation-size softballs. This is followed by two more unloaded laps. All this has to be done in less than ten minutes.
The team's score is determined by the total number of laps flown added to the number of balls carried divided by the total time for the flights. Teams receive a three-minute penalty for each lap that's not completed within the ten-minute time window.
The teams also are judged on a written report and a "rated cost" formula that accounts for the weight of the plane, engine power, and total construction time.
The design requirements change each year to encourage innovation and to give students a fresh challenge. Last year, for instance, planes had to lift heavy payloads and also carry tennis balls. "The key was to have a large cargo bay and the ability to lift a lot of weight," Haley says. The UA plane lifted 15 pounds of steel and 98 tennis balls.
This is the UA AIAA club's third year in the contest. During their rookie year, they placed 28th out of 35 schools. But Haley designed a unique fiberglass landing gear that many teams copied for use on their planes last year. In 2001 UA placed 13th out of 28 schools.
The students designed this year's plane starting with rough pencil-and-paper sketches. Then models were tested in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering low-speed wind tunnel. After that, the team used engineering drafting software to build a detailed computer model to be sure all the components would fit together properly. Finally, the first prototype was constructed.
One of the major lessons they've learned is that extensive testing pays off, says mechanical engineering sophomore Keith Brock, who is this year's project coordinator for the Design/Build/Fly airplane. "We've found it's all about getting the plane done and having enough time to test and make changes in the design," Brock says. "This gives us a lot more time to develop new ideas and strategies to make the plane more stable and faster."
Last year the plane had 12 hours in the air before the competition. This year, the students are aiming to put 30 hours on the design. Several versions of the plane will be built as the team makes design changes.
Finally, there comes a day when the plane has to be grounded. "That way we're assured of going to the competition," Haley says. "If we crash, we need time to rebuild, test fly and put the plane into a box for shipment."
Funding for the project has come from Raytheon, the UA College of Engineering and Mines, the UA Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department, Desert Aircraft, and a number of small businesses that have donated building materials such as foam and wood.
Desert Aircraft is well known in the RC modeling community as the manufacturer of sophisticated high-performance propellers. The company has provided the UA team with a number of props for testing. Being able to work closely with the manufacturer has been a major advantage for the UA team in its efforts to maximize the power output of their engine/propeller combination, Haley says.
***University of Arizona news is online @ http://uanews.org***
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