AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) DBF (Design Build Fly) is an international engineering competition. Each year, student teams field aircraft for a set of complex missions and compete against each other for the highest score.
We are Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Prescott's DBF competition team. From the "womb to tomb" of each competition, we do everything from preliminary design, to CAD modeling, to prototyping and flight testing in fewer than 7 months.
DBF is challenging, fast-paced, and interdisciplinary. Being robotic systems with dozens of moving parts, each aircraft draws from every facet of engineering, including aerospace, mechanical, electrical, and software disciplines. Expertise in business operations keeps our 40+ member team running, while competitive intelligence helps us find new advantages. Model aviators from all majors pitch in to design, build, and fly our aircraft for tests and competitions.
Each year, 300+ teams worldwide submit their design reports- about a third of them are invited to the international flyoff, and even fewer successfully complete all three missions. For the last two years, we've finished in the top ten.
