POLITECNICO DI MILANO’S STUDENT TEAMS WERE AWARDED IN 2024 AIAA AND VFS COMPETITIONS
The year 2024 has been another great year for the MSc Aeronautical Engineering students of the Aircraft Design track with a 2nd place in the aircraft design contest sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a 3rd place in the rotorcraft design contest sponsored by the Vertical Flight Society
The Aircraft Design track within the MSc studies in Aeronautical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano provides a great opportunity to our students to be challenged with ambitious projects, often concerning highly innovative platforms and missions. In the past academic year, two student teams, supervised by professors Carlo E. D. Riboldi and Lorenzo Trainelli, successfully competed in the most representative international student design contests: the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) graduate student design competition and the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) student design competition.
Team Pol-E Sparky was awarded the second place in the AIAA competition with their design of a two-seater sailplane with an innovative propulsive configuration, designed to provide flight schools with a fully electric, self-launching training platform as an alternative to the traditional towing procedure. The team, formed by Carlo FAZIOLI (Team Leader), Leonardo FILIPPELLO, Andrea GAIANI, Mattia LURASCHI and Valentino PAROLO, designed a highly optimized, original platform that provides reduced operating costs, large loading capabilities and high endurance.
Team Heron was awarded the third place in the VFS competition with their design of a multi-mission modular unmanned aerial system (UAS) conceived for challenging disaster relief missions. The team, formed by Francesco ROSATO (Team Leader), Alberto GUSMAROLI, Giorgio RAOS, Emanuele RIOCCI, Luca RIVA and Alessio SCUBLA, designed an electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft capable of accomplishing an immediate rescue mission in a natural disaster scenario. Among the main Heron features, easily swappable add-ons, a long endurance achieved thanks to a hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion system, and the capability to take-off from a ship deck make up for an ideal asset for quick and versatile interventions.
With their success, teams Pol-E Sparky and Heron carried on the remarkable series of flattering achievements awarded to Politecnico di Milano students started in 2013, with multiple rankings from first to third in the AIAA, VFS and other international competitions.
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