Tag: engineering

AIAA Announces 2025 Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition Winners

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 14, 2025 – Tucson, Ariz. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) announced the winners of the 29th Annual AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) Competition:

  • First Place ($3,000): FH Joanneum, Graz, Austria
  • Second Place ($2,000): Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
  • Third Place ($1,500): Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, Calif.
  • Best Report Score ($100): University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Complete results are posted at aiaa.org/dbf.

This year marks DBF’s largest ever flyoff participation, with 1,200+ students on 97 university teams attending onsite. The flyoff was hosted by AIAA Corporate Member RTX in Tucson, Ariz. Teams from 14 countries participated in the flyoff weekend, including the U.S. with representation from 34 states.

This year’s flight objective was to design, build, and test an airplane to execute an X-1 Supersonic Flight Test Program, including the launch of an X-1 test vehicle – an autonomous glider with flashing lights. Teams also conducted a timed ground mission demonstration of the X-1 Flight Test Program.

“DBF is a highlight of the AIAA year,” said AIAA CEO Clay Mowry. “The students who compete here are the next generation of aerospace professionals. Congratulations to the winning teams!

“This year’s DBF mission is inspired by the Bell X-1 plane that Chuck Yeager flew when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. It was a feat once deemed impossible. The X-1 was powered by an XLR-11 engine build by Reaction Motors, a company spun out of the American Rocket Society, one of AIAA’s predecessor organizations in 1941. Our newly unveiled AIAA logo is inspired by the Bell X-1 breaking the sound barrier. We hope these students channel the X-1 spirit in their future careers to show the world what’s possible.” Mowry added.

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 RTX, Textron Aviation, 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 flyoff.”

The 2026 AIAA DBF Competition will be held in April 2026 hosted in Wichita, Kan., by Textron Aviation.

Media contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

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Video

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(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)

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