The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) made its debut at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Design/Build/Fly Competition in Wichita, Kansas, securing the 39th position globally and fifth in Asia. The institute also recorded the highest total score among participating Indian teams.

The competition brought together university teams from 12 countries, with 98 teams submitting design reports and participating in the fly-off. IIT Kharagpur was represented by a 21-member student team that designed, built, tested and flew an aircraft within four months.

The competition provided students with practical experience across multiple areas of aerospace engineering, including aerodynamics, aircraft structures, propulsion, avionics, computer-aided design, manufacturing and flight testing. The project required students to work through design and engineering challenges within a defined timeline and prepare their aircraft for competition flights.

The team received support from the Department of Aerospace Engineering and the Aerial Robotics Kharagpur (ARK) Lab, along with mentorship from Prof Arnab Roy, Anup Ghosh, Naba Kumar Peyada, Prof Sandeep Saha and Prof Somesh Kumar.

The 2026 edition marked the 30th year of the AIAA Design/Build/Fly Competition. Of the 175 proposals submitted and evaluated, 102 teams were invited to submit design reports. A total of 98 teams submitted reports, while 89 teams attended the fly-off, including 17 international teams. More than 1,200 students, faculty members and guests attended the event, and 83 of the participating teams completed the technical inspection. The competition recorded 197 official flight attempts, of which 143 resulted in successful scores. Seventy-three teams achieved at least one successful flight score, while 17 teams completed all four missions, comprising one ground mission and three flight missions. This year’s theme was a “Banner Towing Bush Plane”. The first flight mission required teams to complete three laps within five minutes. The second, a charter flight, evaluated the number of passengers and cargo carried, laps completed and battery capacity. The final mission involved towing a banner, with scores based on banner length, laps flown and the aircraft’s wingspan. Teams also had to complete a ground mission demonstrating how efficiently they could load and unload passengers and convert the aircraft into a banner-towing configuration. The University of Ljubljana secured first place, followed by the University of Washington-Seattle and the University of California, Los Angeles. For IIT Kharagpur, the competition offered students an opportunity to apply classroom learning to aircraft design, manufacturing and flight operations in an international engineering setting.