Project Orange Hornet has secured a spot in the Top 10 for the first time in USYD DBF history! Sydney UAV Engineering is thrilled to share that our USYD DBF team’s entry into the 2024 AIAA Design Build Fly competition, Orange Hornet, has achieved: 🏆 P1 in Asia-Pacific 🏆 P1 in Australia 🥈 P2 internationally 🌏 P10 out of 107 teams overall Orange Hornet is a remote-controlled UAV designed for Urban Air Mobility, capable of efficient transportation of medical supplies and passengers. Featuring a 1.5 m wingspan and a rapid wing swivel mechanism, the aircraft can seamlessly fit within a 2.5 ft (0.76 m) parking space and can be assembled with full payload in under 5 minutes. Marking the team’s second ever attendance of the DBF Fly-offs, the aircraft flew competitively in Wichita, Kansas, and completed all missions successfully without any failures. This outstanding achievement reflects the dedication and hard work of every member of the USYD DBF Engineering and Operations teams, who have devoted themselves tirelessly to this project over the past year. We are also immensely grateful to the staff members at the University of Sydney, particularly our Team Faculty Advisor, Professor KC Wong, for his commitment to providing resources, guidance, and workshop space, and Jeremy Randle, who was ever ready to offer his mentorship to the team throughout the process. A special thanks to all the other university staff members who contributed expertise at our critical design reviews – Dries Verstraete, Nicholas Lawson FRAeS, Zihao Wang, Yuchen Huang, and Nishanth Menakath. An aircraft’s success hinges on its pilot – we would like to extend our thanks to Steve Dalton -Keep for flying our aircraft during flight-testing this season, enabling us to test performance capabilities and push limits. And to our Competition Pilot, Jimmy Prouty, who spearheaded the team’s competition run at the Fly-off with his exceptional flying of Orange Hornet in the extremely windy conditions of Wichita. We express our deepest gratitude to our sponsors for their generous support, with special appreciation to our Sapphire sponsors: the School of AMME and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney, and Innovaero. Thank you to LEAP Australia, Balsa Central, Engineers Australia, and OpenDoor Coaching, for contributing to next-generation engineering. At Sydney UAV Engineering, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of UAV design and fostering the growth of our members as engineers and leaders. We are proud to have achieved this well and truly this season, where we designed an aircraft that stands proudly amongst veterans of the competition. The team will continue to strive for excellence in the seasons to come. Thank you for joining us on this journey so far – here’s to the next season, and beyond!
Dries Verstraete
3mo
Great outcome for all the long hours you put in. well done.
Hugh Dillon
3mo
So glad that all of our hard work paid off. What an amazing result! So proud of everyone.
AIAA
3mo
Well done! We can’t wait to see the team next year. #AIAADBF
Congratulations! Kudos from Acceleron Aerospace
well done all, you make our school proud!
Kyle Mayes
3mo
Great work everyone 🐝
Jenna McCarthy
3mo
Fantastic work! Congratulations!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
LEAP Australia
3mo
Incredible achievement, well done Sydney UAV Engineering 👏
Simon Grosser
3mo
Congratulations. That's a fantastic result
Professor of Aerospace Engineering at The University of Sydney
3moGreat achievement! Very proud of this hard working and well-organised team. It is amazing how much they have achieved with such minimal funding. Facilitating experiential learning to cultivate the brilliance of the next generation aeronautical engineers is one of the most rewarding things we do in AMME@USyd. In 2024, we celebrate 85 years of aerospace engineering at The University of Sydney. We have been facilitating the learning of aeronautical engineering since 1939, and many of our graduates have indeed gone on to achieve great things in aerospace and many other industry and application sectors. As we acknowledge and celebrate the great achievements of this 2023/24 USyd Design-Build-Fly team, we can indeed look forward to a bright future towards more of our high achieving graduates affirmatively contributing to the global industry and society! Note to Australian Industry - please do more to support the development of engineers while they are still in universities. They are going to become your future assets. The USyd DBF team is highly appreciative of the support they have secured for this competition, but many team members had to secure support from family and friends and make sacrifices to make it to the competition.