Iowa State Design Build Fly 2025

Who We Are

Iowa State University's Design Build Fly (DBF) is a student-run project facilitated by the Make to Innovate (M2I) program. The team’s mission is to design, build, and fly an aircraft for the purpose of competing in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design/Build/Fly (AIAA DBF) Annual contest. The goal of this contest is to enhance the engineering knowledge, understanding, and skills of the participating students. The main objective for this year’s team is to design an aircraft that is well-equipped to fully complete each mission of the competition in Wichita, Kansas.

Competition Details

The AIAA DBF competition is a yearly international aircraft design competition open to all university students. Each year students are tasked with designing, building, and flying unmanned, electric powered, remote control aircraft. These aircraft are required to meet unique and very specific design requirements and mission profiles. Each year, the missions change forcing teams to come up with completely new aircraft year after year. This VIDEO gives an overview of the DBF competition. The competition location alternates yearly between Wichita, KS, and Tucson, AZ. More information on the competition can be found on the official AIAA DBF WEBSITE.

This Year's Competition

This year’s competition objective is to design, build, and test a banner-towing bush plane that conducts charter flights to pay for the airplane as well. The competition requires that the aircraft have a single passenger compartment as well as at least one cargo compartment. The airplane must be capable of carrying at least three passengers for each piece of cargo. The banner must be able to deploy and release during the flight as well. The competition this year is in Wichita, Kansas, from April 16-19.

This Year's Aircraft

Technical Specifications:

• Wing Span: 5 ft
• Wing Chord: 12 in
• Length: 4 ft
• Max Weight: 15 lb

Previous Years

Help ISU DBF

ISU DBF needs your help. The logistics and travel to the competition in Tucson, Arizona, require a lot of money. With these donations, students will gain valuable experience and represent Iowa State University in one of the world's largest aircraft design competitions.  Attending and competing in this competition is extremely valuable to our team. Check out more about our team at https://m2i.aere.iastate.edu/design-build-fly/.