VFS announces 40th Annual Student Design Competition winners
The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) last week announced the winners of its 40th Annual Student Design Competition. The team from the University of Maryland took first place in the Graduate category, and Georgia Institute of Technology/US Military Academy in the Undergraduate category.
In addition, the Military Institute of Technology (Bangladesh) took Best New Undergraduate Entrant honours. Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky was the
sponsor of this year’s competition, supporting a total of $12,500 in prize money.
Academic teams from around the world submitted entries with a total of 13 proposals from four different countries. The goal of this year’s Request for Proposals (RFP) was to design a large VTOL aircraft that would balance sustained hover operations with high-speed and high-altitude cruise capabilities.
Students had to design an aircraft capable of carrying a payload of 5,000 lb within an internal cargo bay with dimensions of 6.5 ft high, 8 ft wide and 30 ft long at a mission radius of 500 nautical miles and a cruise speed of no less than 450 miles per hour at a threat-avoidance altitude greater than 20,000 ft.
The vehicle design also needed to include features to mitigate the severity of the outwash/downwash environment on ground personnel, as well as to minimise the susceptibility of the propulsion system to Foreign Object Debris (FOD) ingestion.
The winning teams for the graduate category are as follows:
1st University of Maryland College Park
2nd Georgia Institute of Technology/Sapienza University (Rome)
3rd Politecnico di Milano Milan, Italy
The University of Maryland’s design is a 48,000-lb mixed-power tiltrotor with two 39 ft proprotors powered by two inboard turboshaft engines plus two turbofans on the base of the tail for additional forward thrust.
The winning teams for the undergraduate category are as follows:
1st Georgia Institute of Technology/US Military Academy
2nd University of Maryland College Park
3rd Pennsylvania State University State College
The Best New Entrant was the Military Institute of Science & Technology of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The team from Georgia Institute of Technology and The US Military Academy was the winning undergraduate team with its ‘Harpy’ concept, inspired by half-human and half-bird harpy eagles from mythology known for carrying heavy weights.
The 51,500 lb vehicle leverages a novel configuration of two 36 ft diameter, two-bladed rotors mounted on the wingtips. For high-speed forward flight, the rotors are stopped and the retracting blades are stored in the wings. The aircraft is powered by two convertible engine system technology (CEST)
turbofan/turboshaft engines to drive the rotors and provide cruise thrust.
Two members of each of the first-place winning teams are invited to the 80th Annual Forum & Technology Display scheduled for 7–9 May 2024 in Montreal, Canada. The Annual Student Design Competition sponsorship rotates between Airbus Helicopters, Bell, Boeing, Leonardo, Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin and the DEVCOM Army Research Lab.
In June, the VFS announced the winners of its third annual Design-Build-Vertical Flight (DBVF) Student Competition. Auburn University took first place, University of Maryland took second and McGill University took third.
