We did it!!!!

Deutsche Version

After a long series of second places and some big setbacks in the building process, we are overwhelmed that our efforts finally paid off: We made the first place in Air Cargo Challenge 2019 in Stuttgart!

It was a very close race and we just reached first place in the last flight of the competition.(see video) For this achievement our team was working for almost a year, spending countless days and nights in our workshop:
Designing, building and flying an entire aircraft specifically for the regulations of the competition.
The goal of the competition is to transport as much payload as possible, as fast as possible over a distance of 1000 meters with nine 180° turns. Payload and flight time then compute to a point score. Motor, propeller and batteries are fixed, so every team has the same amount of power.

Our best rated flight lifted 9.8 kg and we flew the 1000 m in just 58 seconds. Videos of all of our flights will be published soon.
The competition was extremely hard this year. In the end, even the bonus points, given for a short landing, fast loading and precise prediction of the possible payload made a difference.
We want to thank all of our Supporters for their help to achieve this incredible result:

Airbus
Der Himmlische Höllein
Bund der Freunde der TU München
Institute for Aircraft Design -TUM
TU München
Technische Universität München – Fakultät für Maschinenwesen

We also want to thank MCM Salmdorf for the possibility to make our first flight at their airfield. We hope you are satisfied with our result! 😉

A big “thank you” to AKAModell Stuttgart e.V.. They organized an incredible event for several hundred participants from all over the world.

And last but not least a big thank you to our competitors for a great time and a very fair competition. We hope you had as much fun as we did!

Now it is our turn to organize the Air Cargo Challenge in 2021. We hope to provide you with some initial information about this in the near future.

technical Data and Innovations with the airplane “Garfield”:

Innovations:

• Special optimization of the whole airplane as one. We optimized not only the planform and size of the aircraft for maximum points, but the shape of the airfoil as well. Doing this we could account for the complex interaction between the airplane geometry and the aerodynamic wingsection.
• We didn’t just maximize the possible Payload. Because a combination of more speed an dless Payload can even get more Points, we integrated a simulation of the entire distance-flight. Parameters like “g-forces”, structure and even flap settings to reduce drag even more were used and optimized within one program.
• In total we used 17 variable Parameters. Doing over one million Calculations, we found an optimum for the current regulations.
• Another big aspect of the design proces was to create as simple a configuration as possible. Every part in our Construction has its necessity. true to the motto:
  “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des Hommes
• A side benefit is that there is abig reduction in drag. Using a thick airfoil, we were able to have all linkages inside of the wing, increasing its efficiency.

After ACC2017 we published the Wing-section we used. We know that some teams experimented with our slotted flap profile from last time and came up with their own, very successful, versions at ACC2019. We believe in a creative exchange of Ideas and Data at Air Cargo Challenge and hope for the other teams to share theirs as well. To support this, we will publish our ACC2019-wing section again:

(Please change manually: *.csv to *.dat)
If you use it, we would be trhilled if you give us a note.

Optimized for Overall competition performance by Christian Rieger.
Please rename *.csv -> *.dat
Optimized flap positions:
Hinge at 70% on upper surface
Takeoff and Turns: +9.78°
Speed: -1.33°

Windtunnel testing of the new Propeller:

Air Cargo Challenge 2019 Veranstalter-Homepage