Penn Aerial Robotics conducted its first successful flight test of its current model aircraft on October 12.

About 20 students showed up for the flight test at 5 a.m. at Cross Keys Airport in New Jersey. The plane, with an airborne mass of over 40 pounds, reached a height of 120 feet and a speed of 55 miles per hour and was able to land successfully.

The club’s flight test was part of his preparation for SAE Aero Design Competitionwhich challenges competitors to build an airplane that can carry the largest payload possible with a maximum wingspan of 15 feet.

According to engineering senior and PennAiR president Xiangyu Chen, this flight test is particularly impressive because it was the largest aircraft ever built in the club’s history.

“When our plane actually took off, I saw everyone going, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool.’ I was also really proud of the team for what we were all able to come up with,” said Sakshi Lende, senior Engineering and PennAiR vice president of operations. “It was super exciting to see that the things we’ve all been working on did what they were supposed to do.”

The current model was built last year, and PennAiR used it for the first flight in the design competition. The model was able to lift off the ground, but did not achieve sustained flight. This year, team members worked on revising the design to achieve a long enough flight time.

Chen, who plays a major role in parts procurement and project management, said he has followed the plane’s development since he joined as a freshman. He served as Chief Mechanic during his sophomore year and remained involved with PennAiR throughout his four undergraduate years.

“It was definitely a disappointment last year that we weren’t able to get him to go the full trajectory that we wanted him to,” Che said. “There’s also been encouragement because since COVID, there’s been a kind of restart of the club.”

Club advisor Siddharth Deliwala, who is the director of the electrical and systems engineering labs, said the performance at the competition gave the team a chance to improve in addition to their work.

Between last year’s competition and this year’s successful flight test, the team made several tweaks to its model. Modifications included adding a spring to one side of the landing gear to blunt the force from hitting the ground and redesigning the tail to reduce weight.

Engineering junior Avaniko Asokkumar, vice president of finance and a member of the software and mechanical teams, said the team had a heavy workload in the weeks leading up to the competition and was glad to be able to assemble everything on time.

“I was pretty proud of how far we’ve come,” Asokkumar said. “I was very proud to see the plane actually fly.”

Che was also proud of the successful flight test, given last year’s disappointment when the plane failed to make a sustained flight.

“You can see these things on the data computer and these simulations all the time. This is the first time it has worked in the physical world,” Che said. “It’s definitely a moment of surprise. Everyone was really excited because we went through all the different metrics and tests that we planned.”

Che said this flight test not only established a routine for the club to run flights through checklists, but also built relationships within the club. He added that this flight test will be a step in the club’s move towards more successful flight tests, the next of which is planned to be in the first week of December.

“We’re really excited to build on that and do even better this year,” Che said.

Deliwala noted that a strength of Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is the opportunity for students to build their own projects within the clubs. He stated that “this kind of innovation is irreplaceable” and keeps students motivated while building team spirit.

“That’s what makes engineering interesting,” Deliwala said. “We’re lucky to have a student body that wants to do this despite the crazy homework loads. That excites me, so I’m very pleased.”

Going forward, the club plans to continue repeating the current model. The team aims to implement a new design that is estimated to reduce weight by 40% and use a new airfoil with more left over for increased payload. The club also plans to expand into creating an autonomous carbon fiber aircraft to compete in another subdivision of the competition this year.

“We’re definitely making a lot more progress than we did in previous years,” Lende said. “I’m really excited to see how the carbon fiber airplane works.”

Engineering student and head of research development Andy Guo shared confidence in the new projects.

“We have a lot of smart people working on this,” Guo said. “Autonomous flight is a challenging problem, but there are a lot of resources that we’ve kind of tapped into.”