Design/Build/Fly
2025
The Competition
Design/Build/Fly is an international yearly competition organized by AIAA where university teams design, build, and fly an unmanned aircraft to complete mission-based challenges. The 2025 edition to place from April 10–13 in Tucson, Arizona, hosted by Raytheon Technologies.
The Main Goal
The 2025 Design/Build/Fly (DBF) competition challenge teams to design and build a radio-controlled aircraft that can complete a series of complex missions inspired by the historic Bell X-1 supersonic flight. The main objective is to carry and deploy an autonomous glider — the "X-1 test vehicle" — mid-flight, while achieving the best balance between speed, efficiency, and flight performance.
The Team
The Final Product
For this DBF 2025 edition, the team worked very hard to achieve the best possible result. The final aircraft design features a wingspan of 1.83 meters with an average chord of 0.41 meters, capable of carrying the X-1 test vehicle with a payload capacity of 8.5 kg.
Using the best materials and manufacturing processes available, the final product showed great promise, and the team was proud of all the dedication and effort invested throughout the project.
The Results
In the end, UBIAT’s representation at Design/Build/Fly 2025 was outstanding. Out of 112 teams worldwide, our team achieved 28th place, placing us in the top 25%. We also ranked 3rd amongst the European teams and secured 15th place for the Technical Report.
We are proud of these results, which reflect our hard work, dedication, and technical excellence throughout the competition.
Sponsors
None of our work would be possible without the help from our sponsors, this way we would like to thank's all the help they gave us and hope we can work together again in a near future.
