2023-2024: Bearbus
Our aircraft from the 2023-2024 competition year is named Bearbus! It was designed with folding wings which allow it to fit in a 2.5' wide parking space when landed. Additionally, it has a payload bay that houses passengers, a medical cabinet, gurney, and EMTs. In order to take off in 20 feet, the aircraft was designed with an extremely powerful propulsion system and fowler flaps.
At competition in Witchita, Kansas, Bearbus completed every mission and never crashed! We placed 14/107 internationally and were the highest ranked team from California.
14th Internationally
#1 Team in California
2022-2023: Corndog
Our 2022-23 plane is named Corndog. Corndog was designed to be modular, so it could fit in a box and be assembled in 5 minutes on the flight line. The missions this year included flying with a payload and flying with a PVC pipe mounted on one wing. At competition in Tucson, Corndog was the first plane to successfully complete all missions, never crashed, and placed 15th overall!
2021-2022: Lazarus
Our 2021-22 plane was named Lazarus. Its main features were six ramps which allowed it to deploy packages carefully through the sides of the fuselage. The plane had to be rebuilt overnight at competition after an unfortunate accident. It still earned 16th place overall!
2020-2021: Patchwork
Our 2020-21 plane was given the name Patchwork due to the piece-by-piece manner in which the plane was built by members in a number of different locations. The central design goal was to create a plane capable of stowing, deploying, towing, and retracting a sensor with flashing lights visible in daylight.
