Top Guns Again: Cal Poly Students Win AIAA Design Competition

Second-Place Winning Team of Cal Poly Students

Silver Top Guns: Left to right: Ryan Halper (TA), Lacey Jones (TA), Kasey Johnson
(Team Lead), Peter Huang, Simo Alberti, Kevin Hougen, Erin Hambrick
Bruce Wright (Instructor). On the team but not pictured Brian Borra, Casey Regan

SAN LUIS OBISPO – For the eighth time in the past nine years, Cal Poly aerospace seniors soared above the competitors at the national Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design competition, taking both first and second places at the contest sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation (AIAA).

Designing “Alternate Fuels and Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Systems,” 34 teams from 12 universities competed in the 2010 contest. Cal Poly’s “Much Better Planes Introduces the Bearodactyl” won the $2,500 first place award, while Cal Poly’s “GFX-50” won the $1,500 award for second place. USC’s “Egret” team earned $1,000 for third place.

“The competition was really fierce again and, much like a consistently winning college football team, our program starts with great talent and good training in the off season,” said faculty adviser Rob McDonald, who credited six separate reviews by engineers from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the Air Force Flight Test Center with the success of the 2010 Cal Poly teams. “The industry feedback is a great mechanism to improve student designs, and they are extremely motivating for the students.”

Both of Cal Poly’s winning teams were invited to present their designs at the AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration and Operations Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas, in mid-September.

Led by faculty adviser Bruce R. Wright, Cal Poly’s first-place team Bearodactyl included Dominic Surano, Jake Armstrong, Chris Choi, Jake Gaunt, David Guerrero, Ben Naravage, Dan Shehan, and Kyle Thoma.

Cal Poly’s GFX-50 team, also led by Wright, included Kasey Johnsen, Simo Alberti, Brian Borra, Erin Hambrick, Kevin Hougen, Peter Huang and Casey Regan.

More information on the AIAA Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design Competition is available at www.aiaa.org.

###