30th Annual Design/Build/Fly Competition | 16–19 April 2026 | Wichita, KS (USA)
About Design/Build/Fly
The 2025-2026 Design/Build/Fly Competition will celebrate its 30th year. Started in 1996 by the AIAA Applied Aerodynamics, Aircraft Design, Design Engineering and Flight Test Technical Committees as an opportunity for university students to apply real-world aircraft design experience by giving them the opportunity to validate their analytic studies.
Student teams will design, fabricate, and demonstrate the flight capabilities of an unmanned, electric powered, radio-controlled aircraft which can best meet the specified mission profile. The goal is a balanced design possessing good demonstrated flight handling qualities and practical and affordable manufacturing requirements while providing a high vehicle performance.
To encourage innovation and maintain a fresh design challenge for each new year’s participants, the design requirements and performance objective will be updated for each new contest year. The changes will provide new design requirements and opportunities, while allowing for application of technology developed by the teams from prior years.
For questions, please contact us at [email protected].
Host for the competition will be Textron Aviation with the Textron Aviation Employees’ Flying Club in Wichita, KS, as the site for the 30th DBF, due to take place 16-19 April 2026. The mission for this year is to design, build, and test a Banner Towing Bush Plane.
Important Dates:
- Proposal Submission Window Open: 15 October 2025, 8 a.m. US ET
- Proposal Submission Window Closed: 31 October 2025, 5 p.m. US ET
- Team Notifications Sent: 21 November 2025 (no later than)
- Final Report Submission Window Open: 1 February 2026, 8 a.m. US ET
- Final Report Submission Window Closed: 20 February 2026, 5 p.m. US ET
- Design/Build/Fly Competition Flyoff: 16–19 April 2025 at the Textron Aviation Employee’s Flying Club in Wichita, KS
All attendees to the DBF Flyoff will be required to register for this event. This is required to comply with AIAA attendance rules and regulations for forums and large events. More information will be provided prior to the flyoff.
NEW FOR 2026 – The Q&A process now requires teams to submit questions using the official DBF Q&A Form or they will not be accepted. Details on using the new form, limits and requirements on questions submitted and the actual submittal process are in the rules.
All team members must have a valid AIAA Student Membership. Membership numbers of all team members must be submitted with the team rosters during the initial proposal round. You may join at any time by going to the AIAA Student Membership website. Membership numbers are provided instantly upon payment of membership fees.
All teams and students participating in DBF are expected to uphold the highest standards of sportsmanship during the competition and abide by the AIAA Code of Ethics. Attempts to intentionally violate the rules or negatively impact the performance of other teams will not be tolerated. Penalties for violations will be decided by the Contest Administration and may range from a warning to a loss of flight score up to disqualification from the current and future competitions.
* As stated in the rules, no technical rules questions will be answered by the DBF Director until after the close of the entry period. You must submit your technical questions after 31 Oct.
- All teams and spectators attending DBF, please use #AIAADBF when you Tweet, post to your Instagram stories, or share on Facebook. Please make sure you’re following AIAA and you might get retweeted/shared!
Contact for Questions:
Competition Questions: [email protected]
Submission Portal or Event Questions: [email protected]
