Tag: aerospace engineering

AIAA Announces 2026 Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition Winners

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 banner-towing 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

About AIAA

AIAA is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With more than 33,000 individual members from 91 countries, and over 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. Visit www.aiaa.org or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X.

New Glenn Booster Completes Hot Fire as Blue Origin Eyes Sunday Launch

Spaceflight Now reports, “Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket roared to life in a critical pre-launch demonstration of its main engines Thursday, less than an hour after the Sun crested over the horizon in Florida. The seven BE-4 engines fired for about 20 seconds, at 7:45 a.m. EDT (1145 UTC). Engineers will now pore through the data and if everything looks good, the launch with AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird-7 satellite could take place as soon as Sunday, April 19.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

Air Combat Command Tests Anduril’s YFQ-44A CCA Prototype

Defense Daily reports, “Last week, the Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Nellis AFB, Nev., tested an Anduril Industries YFQ-44A Fury prototype Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), which flew from a company site in southern California to Edwards AFB, Calif., for the testing and back again, Anduril said on Thursday.”
Full Story (Defense Daily)

AIAA Design/Build/Fly Livestream Planned for 17–19 April

FROM THE INSTITUTE
The DBF experience won’t only be witnessed by those on the ground. AIAA is bringing the energy of the competition beyond the Kansas sky and into living rooms, labs, and classrooms worldwide. Viewers can tune into a livestream on AIAA’s YouTube channel on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 17–19 April, to witness the takeoffs, the tense moments, the triumphs, and the heartbreaks in real time.

New AIAA Position Paper on ITAR Reforms to Promote and Support a Robust Academic Pipeline

FROM THE INSTITUTE
Earlier this year, the AIAA Board of Trustees approved a new position paper on ITAR that offers recommendations to enhance ITAR and promote a robust academic pipeline. While ITAR is essential for safeguarding national security, when outdated definitions limit safe academic activities, they can inadvertently undermine the very system they’re intended to protect. AIAA’s stance embodies a straightforward principle: security and innovation are not opposing forces. When policies are well balanced, they can enhance each other.

Vertical Hits Major eVTOL Milestone With Two-Way Flight

Aerotime reports, “Vertical Aerospace has achieved what its CEO Stuart Simpson described as the ‘most significant technical milestone’ in its history after the air taxi developer became the first outside the US to execute a piloted two-way transition flight. On 14 April 2026, at its spiritual home at Cotswold Airport (GBA), Chief Test Pilot Simon Davies successfully switched Vertical Aerospace’s electric vehicle takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft from helicopter mode to plane mode and back again.”
Full Story (Aerotime)

SpaceX Launches Two Starlink Missions 19 Hours Apart

SPACE reports, “SpaceX began and ended the day with Starlink launches. The company sent two Falcon 9 rockets soaring, first from Florida before sunrise on Tuesday (April 14), and then from California after sunset the same day (by local time zone). Both launches were successful, according to SpaceX”
Full Story (SPACE)

Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on April 14. (Launch occurs at the 0:13 mark)
VideoFromSpace; YouTube

Boeing Delivers 143 Aircraft in Q1 2026, Led by 737 Output

Aerotime reports, “Boeing delivered 143 commercial aircraft in the first quarter of 2026, a figure that demonstrates the company’s output is holding steady after last year’s recovery took hold. Though deliveries fell short of Boeing’s brisk late-2025 pace, the most recent quarter was led by 114 deliveries of the 737, along with six 767s, eight 777s, and 15 787s.”
Full Story (Aerotime)

Defense Firms Target Next Phase of Space Warfare With Agile Satellite Designs

Space News reports, “U.S. defense contractors BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin are accelerating internal investments in maneuverable satellite designs, betting that military advocacy for “dynamic space operations” will translate into sustained demand for spacecraft that can move, coordinate and respond in orbit. At the Space Symposium this week, both firms outlined separate efforts to fund and fly demonstration spacecraft designed to maneuver on orbit, shadow other satellites and operate as part of more networked architectures.”
Full Story (Space News)