UC Aerocats compete at international aircraft design challenge

The University of Cincinnnati (UC) Aerocats will compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design East competition in Lakeland, Florida, on March 9. Even with record enrollment of 46 members this year, the Aerocats have big shoes to fill.

SAE Aero Design is a real-world aerospace engineering challenge for college students. Over the past few years, the Bearcats teams earned first place in different categories at the competition. This year, UC has three teams, one in each of the three classes of competition-Regular, Advanced, and Micro.

Aerocats is more than just a club that flies remote-controlled planes. It is a capstone course for fifth-year aerospace engineering students that connects years of engineering concepts in one package. Starting in the fall, Aerocats work through months of brainstorming, reviewing project requirements, writing design reports and testing concepts with faculty and consultants. This year’s competition drew a large crop of dedicated fifth-year students who chose challenges that resonated with them.

Joe Rayho is the president of Aerocats and Advanced team project leader. His role is flight operations and payload specialist. His primary job was to determine when and how to drop the payload on the target. Rayho is interested in flight test engineering, so he was glad to provide oversight throughout the build to ensure the aircraft met the challenge restrictions and that flight data could be properly recorded. The advanced team challenge specified a certain engine and flight altitude, and required the aircraft to have full avionics. Rayho employed principles that could have numerous real world applications, like improving the accuracy of humanitarian aid drops.

Alexandra Thul is project lead of the Regular team, whose challenge was to carry as many passengers as possible without exceeding a weight limit and other constraints. Thul chose this challenge because it correlated with her ultimate career goal: to work in a commercial airlines to improve flight passenger experience. She first took interest in aerospace when she read about the positive psychological effect of curved overhead compartments on passengers’ stress levels in Boeing 777 planes. The curves gave an illusion of more open space than the previously squared bins, which could reduce flight anxiety and claustrophobia. Being able to fine-tune every aspect of the aircraft design gave Thul fresh perspective on efficiency and safety.