The Georgia Tech AE undergraduate and graduate teams that participated in the 2011 American Helicopter Society Student Design Competition came in 1st and 2nd place respectively.  The competition requires the student teams to design a multi-mission vertical lift system that optimally blends the competing requirements of three very different missions – Search and Rescue, Insertion and Resupply.  Georgia Tech has obtained the first or second place award 27 out of the 28 years that it has competed in the AHS Student Design Competitions.

The Georgia Tech undergraduate team won first place in this year’s competition with its rotorcraft Golden Retriever, while the graduate team placed second with its entry Odyssey. Daniel P. Schrage, professor of aerospace engineering, is the faculty mentor for both teams consisting of aerospace engineering majors. The members of the undergraduate team include Laura Armanios, Silvio Lopez, Natasha Barbely, Trevor Mohr, Andrew Carter, Michael Moyer, Dennis Garza, Kit Taylor and Gregg Hines. The graduate team consists of Sylvester Ashok, Jonathan Litwin, Raymond Beale, Marc Mugnier, Bhanu Chiguluri, Jaikrishnan Vijaykuma, Michael Jones, Xin Zhang and Jeewoong Kim.  

This year’s sponsor of the competition was Bell Helicopter Textron.