UTA Hosts 10th Annual 3D Printed Aircraft Competition
The University of Texas at Arlington's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering welcomed student engineering teams from across the country to Maverick Stadium on July 11 for the 10th Annual 3D Printed Aircraft Competition (3DPAC). The national competition challenged students to design, analyze, manufacture, and fly aircraft whose airframe structures are produced almost entirely through additive manufacturing. Eighteen university teams participated in this year's fly-off, demonstrating innovative approaches to lightweight design, structural efficiency, and flight performance while applying advanced engineering analysis and modern digital manufacturing techniques. The competition encourages students to integrate engineering design with additive manufacturing while working within realistic fabrication and performance constraints.
Teams competed in fixed-wing and rotary-wing categories for the longest flight duration, while industry-sponsored innovation awards recognized exceptional engineering creativity. In the fixed-wing category, Flight Division from NORCO College earned first place with a flight time of 22.6 seconds, followed by Hokie Tail from Virginia Tech at 21.7 seconds. UTA's Aero Nova team received the Siemens Most Innovative Design Award for its innovative aircraft design. In the rotary-wing competition, which this year consisted of only UTA teams, Batwing won first place for flight duration at 15.4 seconds, Ascend placed second at 12.9 seconds, and Ascend also earned the Siemens Most Innovative Design Award.
The competition also served as a preview of an exciting expansion planned for 3DPAC 2027. Building on the competition's emphasis on advanced manufacturing, next year's event will introduce a new Energy Absorption category that challenges teams to develop aircraft capable of protecting an onboard payload during a controlled impact using structurally integrated energy-absorbing designs. The new category is being developed as part of UTA’s partnership with NASA and reflects shared interests in advancing resilient aerospace structures, additive manufacturing, and impact-resistant materials for future advanced air mobility (AAM) systems. During the 2026 competition, a UTA student team developed the competition rules, scoring methodology, and evaluation criteria for this new category and conducted a successful demonstration flight. Their prototype aircraft when equipped with an energy-absorbing structure, achieved an improvement of approximately 75 percent in impact protection performance. The new category extends the educational mission of 3DPAC beyond flight performance to include structural crashworthiness, impact energy management, and multifunctional aerospace design, reflecting growing industry interest in advanced materials and additive manufacturing for resilient aerospace systems.
Now in its tenth year, the UTA 3D Printed Aircraft Competition has become a unique national educational event that brings together students, faculty, and industry to explore the rapidly expanding capabilities of additive manufacturing in aerospace engineering. By combining computer-aided design, engineering analysis, advanced manufacturing, and experimental flight testing, the competition provides students with valuable hands-on experience while fostering innovation in aircraft design and preparing the next generation of aerospace engineers.
