SAE Aero Design West Returns to the California Skies!

VAN NUYS, Ca., March 11, 2009

The first Aero Design competition of the year was held March 6-8, 2009 in Van Nuys, California.  SAE International returned to Apollo XI Field after a year absence and along with Lockheed Martin as host and sponsor, the San Fernando Valley Radio Control Flyers, Byron’s Fuel and NASA, produced an outstanding competition!  54 teams from around the world registered for the event. Teams from the United States, Canada, India, Poland, Mexico and Venezuela all gathered for three days of fun and excitement. 

Organized by Lockheed Martin employees, Gene Holloway, Lea Haubelt and hundreds of volunteers from the area, the event focused on developing young engineers challenging them to design, build and test a radio controlled plane and adhere to the rules and regulations put forth. The competition has been designed to provide exposure to the kinds of situations that engineers face in the real work environment. 

The first day’s activities included a technical and safety check of all planes to determine whether the teams adhered to the specific rules and regulations. There was also an oral presentation by all teams that challenges their interpersonal communication skills. The oral presentations give students the opportunity to convince a government customer to purchase their aircraft design instead of any competitor’s design.  Teams gave detailed explanations of how they arrived at the conclusion that their design was the best and why. Friday’s activities ended with a detailed outline of how the final two days of the competition will be organized. 

Saturday and Sunday were the flying days with 8 rounds of flights by the three classes of planes within the competition; Apollo Field was the perfect venue to handle this competition and the teams.  Sam Gengo and his team from the San Fernando Valley Radio Control Flyers provided some teams pilots and had the field prepared for a great weekend.  5 rounds of flights on Saturday and 3 on Sunday provided all teams with enough flying chances to test their designs fully. The yells and screams from excited students can still be heard through the hills!  This hands-on experience and project management exercise provides students with the skills necessary to enter the real-world environment. 

SAE would like to thank all of those who helped make this event a success. A big thank-you goes to Lockheed Martin, especially to Gene Holloway and Lea Haubelt.  As with all SAE CDS competitions, these events would not have been possible without our volunteers. Those who volunteered and selflessly gave up their weekend to devote their time to this event are very much appreciated.

A small taste of the final results are below:

Regular Class Overall / Elliott Green Award:
1st #002 - Kansas State University
2nd #007 - Boise State University
3rd #004 - University of British Columbia

Open Class Overall:
1st #217 - Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
2nd #212 - Polytechnic University - Brooklyn
3rd #215 - Arizona State University - Tempe

Micro Class Overall:
1st #311 - University of Akron
2nd #317 - University of Central Florida
3rd #318 - Iowa State University

Other Interesting Stats: 
     
Class           Attempts     Successful                 %
Regular            162                   63                     39%
Open                31                     7                      23%
Micro                55                     4                      7%
Total                248                  74                     30% 

For a complete listing of the 2009 Aero Design West results, please visit: http://students.sae.org/competitions/aerodesign/results/