TUCSON, Ariz. — The team from FH Joanneum in Austria won the 29th Design/Build/Fly competition for electric radio-controlled aircraft yesterday, receiving high marks across three flights that included the guided release of a glider.
The number of participants in the annual AIAA collegiate event has steadily increased in recent years, and the 2025 event was no exception. Ninety-seven teams from 14 countries, including the United States, gathered for this year’s challenge, which was inspired by Chuck Yeager’s 1947 flight in which he became the first human to break the sound barrier.
During the flight tests that preceded that feat, Yeager experienced severe aerodynamic buffeting after he and his Bell X-1 aircraft were released from the bay of a B-29 bomber high above the California desert, and the aircraft’s XLR-11 rocket engine ignited to propel it to supersonic speeds. The DBF teams experienced their own challenges in the Arizona desert, where temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), and dust devils and wind gusts up to 50 kph on Saturday and Sunday caused a few teams to crash their aircraft.
Flying in such conditions wasn’t something that Derek Nease of Santa Clara University had practiced leading up to the competition, the university’s first. But he flawlessly navigated the aircraft around a dust devil, contributing to Santa Clara’s third-place finish.
“I flew around it, and then I was afraid to fly that way again because I was worried there would still be turbulence. But our plane handled really well. I was pleased,” Nease told me.
Over the four-day event at TIMPA Field, the Tucson International Modelplex Park Association, teams were challenged to complete three flights and a ground mission, all of which required some level of timed assembly of their main aircraft — their versions of the B-29. In addition to a glider — the X-1 test vehicle — students had to install battery packs and beverage bottles of their choice to emulate fuel tanks.
Flight Mission 1 consisted of installing battery packs at the staging area and then completing three laps within 5 minutes. For Mission 2, the carrier aircraft had to fly three laps carrying the battery packs, glider and tanks, which were to be at least partially full of water or another substance. Mission 3 consisted of the same payload, but this time the tanks could be empty. The glider was to be released any time after the first lap, between 200 and 400 feet in altitude. Teams were allowed to outfit the glider with a GPS receiver and electric motors to help guide it autonomously toward a designated landing zone, marked near the runway.
The scoring for Mission 1 was pass-fail. Points for Missions 2 and 3 were awarded based on the time taken to fly the laps and total weight carried, with additional metrics that were specific to Mission 3: Teams received a higher score for flying more laps prior to glider release and more points if their glider touched down in the center of the landing zone.
FH Joanneum won the $3,000 grand prize by receiving high marks across all the flights. For Mission 2, the team’s carrier aircraft ferried 7.1 kilograms with a time of 1 minute, 58 seconds. For Mission 3, the aircraft flew seven laps before releasing the 0.09 kilogram glider, which landed in the center box of the landing zone.
Edoardo Moschin, a leader of the Joanneum team, said the team’s motto of “Never Fear” helped members push through difficulties. During the first attempt at Mission 2, the aircraft crashed and part of the fuselage broke.
“We had to rebuild the plane and redo Mission 2,” Moschin told me, but the team decided not to reduce the amount of weight for that second attempt, “like many would have considered. And then the flight was successful.”
The $2,000 second-place prize went to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, partly thanks to the team achieving the highest score on the ground mission. The RMIT aircraft carried 8.1 kg with a flight time of 2 minutes, 35 seconds. For Mission 3, the aircraft flew four laps before releasing the 0.08 kg glider into the outer area of the landing zone.
Ali Al-Hakim, one of the RMIT leaders, attributed the achievement to the team learning from its experience in the 2024 competition. “What I learned most was how to manage a team of people with different opinions about how to work,” he told me.
Santa Clara won the third-place prize of $1,500. Although the team’s 0.022 kg glider hit the center of the landing zone during one of the attempts at Mission 3, the team’s best score for that mission came from a different flight that didn’t include a bull’s-eye landing.
For the other awards, the University of New South Wales in Sydney won $100 for best design paper submitted prior to the fly-off event, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University won the Stan Powell Memorial Award for the team that showed it learned the most. The Virginia students persevered despite twice struggling to complete one of the flight missions.
Despite the competitive nature of Design/Build/Fly, AIAA CEO Clay Mowry noted in his remarks to the attendees that there are more than just technical lessons to be learned.
“Hopefully you guys have met some of your colleagues from around the world and made some friends,” he said. “That’s really what’s special about this event: that you’re coming here and you’re connecting with other aerospace international programs from around the world.”
Opener photo caption: FH Joanneum students celebrate their win at AIAA’s Design/Build/Fly event near Tucson, Arizona. Credit: Paul Brinkmann
