News Story

Clark School Students No. 1 in Helicopter Design

Aerospace engineering students win 1st place in the 25th Annual American Helicopter Design Competition.

A group of students from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, supervised by Professor Inderjit Chopra and Senior Research Scientist VT Nagaraj, placed first in the 25th Annual American Helicopter Design Competition. Other participants included Georgia Tech and the Naval Postgraduate School.

The objective of the competition was to design helicopter capable of operating from an unprepared area and that minimizes energy consumption. This "SMART-COPTER" needed to be capable of vertical takeoff and landing and have an initial operational capability in 2020.

The Clark School team submitted a Green Energy Efficient Design design concept.

Students who participated:

Brandon Bush
Choong Yun Lee
Jeong Hwan Sa
Cal Sargeant
Rick Sickenberger
Monica Syal
Evan Ulrich
Nick Wilson

Clark School teams have participated in this contest every year for the past 10 years, winning first place eight times in a row over universities such as the Georgia Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology.

The students develop the design during the course of a one-semester class in Helicopter Design (ENAE 634) offered by the Department of Aerospace Engineering in the spring of each year. The class is co-taught by Professor Inderjit Chopra, Senior Research Scientist VT Nagaraj, and Visiting Professor Marat Tishchenko.

August 22, 2008