News Story

Rotorcraft Center wins first place in AHS/INDUSTRY/NASA Student Design Competition

A team of graduate students from the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center wins first place in the 2002 19th Annual AHS/INDUSTRY/NASA Student Design Competition, sponsored this year by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.

This victory extends the winning streak to five straight years. Georgia Tech captured second place honors, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute won first place in the undergraduate category.

This year Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. challenged participants to take existing 4-6 place aging light helicopters and upgrade them to increased performance, safety and reliability standards at a fraction of the cost of a newly manufactured helicopter. Teams needed to have the helicopters capable of 140 kt cruise and a 400 nm absolute (dry-tank) range at some altitude below 10,000ft. The winning Terp team proposed an upgrade program for the Bell Model 206 JetRanger-the 406-UMTerpRanger.

"Our continued success in this competition is testimony to the innovative spirit of our students, faculty and researchers in the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center," says Dean Nariman Farvardin

The AHS Student Design Competition is sponsored by AHS International --The Vertical Flight Society, which is a professional, technical society founded in 1943, and represents the interests of the worldwide vertical flight industry. Industry Sponsorship is rotated among Boeing-Philadelphia, Boeing-Mesa, Sikorsky and Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. NASA also is a major underwriter of this program.

May 31, 2002