A
NASA competition asking college students to design a next-generation equivalent
of the famed Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft has generated a strong
international response and a standard of entries high enough to impress senior
NASA scientists.
Altogether,
61 students from 14 colleges and universities around the globe submitted design
concepts for the next
generation of small airliners and cargo planes. Entries came from 14 teams
and two individual students.
"The
invention, imagination and engineering exhibited in these college proposals was
extraordinary, and in parts superior to the concepts prevalent in the current
professional literature. These entries bode well for the future of civilian
aeronautics," said Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
Bushnell
was one of several NASA experts who judged the competition. The judges graded
the designs on criteria including creativity and imagination, feasibility and
cost analysis, and comprehensive discussion of the design concept.
The
contest asked students to design a subsonic transport aircraft for the mid-21st-century
that could carry from 25,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds of payload and operate
from runways between 1,500 and 3,000 feet long. Effectively such an aircraft
would offer many of the same capabilities as the venerable DC-3, which now has
been in service for more than 70 years.
However,
NASA's competition required that, unlike the slow DC-3, students' designs for
the small transport of tomorrow should cruise at speeds between 595 mph and 625
mph — about the average speed of jet airliners today. All designs were to be
capable of carrying either passengers or cargo.
The
competition, sponsored by NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program, part of the
agency's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, also stressed that concept
planes should use alternative
fuels and be quieter and more environmentally friendly than today's
commercial fleet.
An
eight-person team from Georgia Tech in Atlanta took first place among
graduate-team entries, with an imaginative biplane concept that used both
forward- and rear-swept staggered wings, each of which was linked to ducted
fans at the wingtips.
Undergraduate-team
honors went to the STINGRAE concept submitted by a six-person team from Virginia
Tech in Blacksburg, Va. The QUEIA concept submitted by a four-person team from
the University of Miami won second place, and the PUMA
short-takeoff-and-landing transport jet design submitted by an eight-person
team from Ohio State University took third place. A two-student team from the University of Central Florida gained an honorable mention with its X-TS Advanced Multirole
Aircraft entry.
Solo
student Gary Redman from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, took first place among international entrants with his Oionos 43 33 concept.
"The
nation's air transportation system is under tremendous pressure to increase
performance and capacity without
causing additional damage to the environment," said Juan Alonso,
director of the Fundamental Aeronautics Program. "Through competitions
such as this, we are nurturing a new generation of engineers who can deliver
the solutions we so desperately need."
As
part of the competition, six U.S. students received a 10-week paid summer
internship at one of four NASA research centers around the country. Non-U.S.
student winners received an engraved trophy and certificate.
The
competition was part of an annual series run by NASA's Aeronautics Research
Mission Directorate. The directorate will announce the topic for next year's
competition by the end of this summer.
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