AIAA Announces 2026 Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition Winners Written 20 April 2026
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Members of the first-place team from the University of Ljubljana pose with fellow competitors at the 2026 AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition in Wichita, Kansas, alongside AIAA CEO Clay Mowry. | Credit: AIAA–©
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2026 – Wichita, Kansas – AIAA announced the winners of the 30th Annual AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition:
- First Place ($3,000): University of Ljubljana
- Second Place ($2,000): University of Washington-Seattle
- Third Place ($1,500): University of California, Los Angeles
- Best Report Score ($100): University of Southern California
- Stan Powell Award for Lessons Learned: Washington University in St. Louis
Complete results are posted at aiaa.org/dbf.
This year, 1,179 students on 89 university teams attended the fly-off onsite. The fly-off was hosted by AIAA Corporate Member Textron Aviation in Wichita, Kansas. Teams represented 12 countries during the fly-off weekend, including the U.S. with 31 states and Washington, D.C.
This year’s flight objective was to design, build, and test a banner0towing bush plane, conducting charter flights for passengers (rubber ducks) and cargo (hockey pucks) to pay for the airplane and start a banner towing business. Recordings of the livestream video of the fly-off is available on AIAA’s YouTube channel.
“DBF is our aeronautics highlight of the year,” said AIAA CEO Clay Mowry. “The students’ passion for DBF reflects the promising future of flight and the next generation of aerospace professionals. DBF is a team sport. Our competitors are gaining hands-on experiences that make them even more attractive to potential employers. DBF teams are tackling the engineering challenges of flight, solving problems, and dealing with setbacks. Most importantly, they’re showing incredible resilience over the course of four days. Congratulations to all of the students who flew during this 30th year of DBF!”
Russ Althof, director of the DBF Organizing Committee, said, “We owe our thanks for the success of the DBF Competition to the efforts of many volunteers from Textron Aviation, RTX, and the AIAA sponsoring Technical Committees: Applied Aerodynamics, Aircraft Design, Flight Test, and Design Engineering. These volunteers collectively set the rules for the contest, gather entries, judge the written reports, and execute the fly-off.”
Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270
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