Again overall win for TU Darmstadt(PtU) in the student competition “Stahl fliegt!” in Düsseldorf

On the day before the competition, all teams presented their planes and design concepts at RWTH Aachen. After visiting the test field of the Metal Forming Institute (ibf), there was a get together with all teams and the organizers in the evening. As a venue for the flights on the next day, hall 6 in the Messe Düsseldorf was chosen. The planes where launched from a height of about sixteen meters. Besides a maximum weight of 400 grams, they had to fit into a cube with an edge length of one meter. The maximum budget for each team was 300,– €. For evaluation purposes, a minimum flight time and distance were defined, multiplied by a weighting factor and added for the overall ranking. With the heaviest plane in the field named “Kleckerle” team Darmstadt 1 clearly pulled away from the other contestants. Special features of the plane were the wings which were formed from a self-made composite material with a weight percentage of 70 % iron. Due to its very stiff airfoil concept average flying times of 20 seconds and flying distances of over 110 meters exceeding the size of the venue were reached. Team Darmstadt 2 took the second place with a daring concept. Due to the double weighting of the flying time the developed aircraft successfully tried to achieve maximum flying time. A rectangular blank of steel foil rotating along the longitudinal axis generated enough lift to stay up to 31 seconds in the air. This was enough for the second place in the overall standings. Now it is up to Darmstadt to again defend the title in the next year’s contest.

The competition is organized by the Institute of Metal Forming (ibf) in Aachen and financially supported by the FOSTA (Research Association for Steel Application). We would like to thank the organizers and sponsors for this great event and hope to come back in the next year with many students!