Engineering Students Take Flight
Samueli students place 7th in annual radio-controlled aircraft Design/Build/Fly competition
June 23, 2006 - A team of 20
The teams flew three different loads: 48 tennis balls, two 2-liter bottles of water, and a 4”x4”x24” wooden block. Scores for this mission were based on cargo loading and unloading time, giving the students a practical demonstration of the importance of cargo loading time for commercial aircrafts.
Students were also judged on their plane’s ability to handle a minimum Rated Average Cost (RAC) mission of 96 tennis balls, as well as an incremental payload mission, tallied based on the highest weight carried.
UC Irvine competition advisors included Robert H. Liebeck, adjunct professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and senior fellow at The Boeing Company, Ben Tigner, Ph.D., from Frontier Systems, and James Bach from Swift Engineering. The students also worked with Associate Dean John LaRue to perform tests within UC Irvine’s Wind Tunnel Lab.
Student chief engineer Matt Garcia led the project, and was supported by:
Alan Lai (graduate student)
Albert Ye
Alex Jordan
An Vu
Anthony Tran
Cesar Rivadeneyra
Jeff Wilschke
Jessie Lawson
Ji Son
Kevin Hung
Lino Delli Quadri
Michael Tran
Nathan Jarvis
Praveen Desilva
Rebecca Shupe (graduate student)
Rhett Roback
Thomas Ihde (graduate student)
Will Kim
For more information, visit:
http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/aiaadbf/2006_results/final_results.pdf
![](http://www.eng.uci.edu/files/AIAA Student Competition 06 - web 4.jpg)