Carrier-Based Reconnaissance and Attack RC Aircraft Design

The 2018-2019 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Design/Build/Fly (DBF) competition requires design and manufacture of a multi-role aircraft to support aircraft-carrier-based operations. The aircraft must carry a removable, rotating rotordome, transitioning from flight configuration to a 3 ft wide, stowed configuration, and carry and drop attack stores. These capabilities and the flight performance are evaluated in three flight missions and one ground mission, at competition in Tucson, Arizona. The driving factor for the aircraft design was simplicity and manufacturing capability. The ERAU Prescott DBF team did not consider score maximization as an element in aircraft design, but rather chose a design that would be relatively simple and easy to build and test many times with a small team. Many design elements thus rely heavily on the use of the four-axis hotwire CNC foam cutter and the two axis laser cutter, to quickly cut foam, balsa, and plywood parts designed with CAD software. The resulting aircraft satisfies all explicit and derived requirements, and will be compete in the 2019 AIAA DBF Competition on April 11, 2019. All designs are a product or ERAU undergraduate student work, with the assistance of ERAU faculty, per written competition requirements. POSTER PRESENTATION EAGLE PRIZE AWAR