SWABI: The students of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology would participate in the design, build and fly contest to be held in the United States of America, next month.

Briefing media about the competition here on Friday, the participating team leader, Humbal bin Usman, said that the contest was being organised by American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), which would be held at Tucson, Arizona, from April 10 to 12.

The prestigious contest is sponsored by the American Cessna Aircraft Company and Raytheon Missile Systems.

The remote control fly competition with the world best selected engineers is a dream for youngsters, he said.

Replying a question, Mr Usman said that overall 84 teams from reputed universities across the world would grace the competition and the GIK Institute’s ‘Avrocar’ was the only team selected from Pakistan.

“We are proud of acceptance of our ‘Aircraft Design Report’. It was the result of the valuable guidance of the institute’s academia and hard work by the team members,” said Mr Usman.

The other students said that they had rich experience of organising design, build and fly contests in the institute each year. Building on the past experience we would make all out efforts to emerge victorious in the Tucson competition, meeting the high expectations of the nation and GIK Institute’s academia, they vowed.

“Team Avrocar has the privilege to not only represent GIK Institute but also Pakistan in the famous international competition,” said Dr SM Ahmad, adviser of the team. “Since our plane is based on a single propeller tractor style propulsion, it is expected that it would make our aircraft very unique and very popular over there,” he said, adding that the contest would be an excellent learning experience as brilliant young engineers would gather on a single platform from the world’s renowned engineering universities.  

“We have tried to rectify our mistakes. We have studied the average wind patterns in the region and reinforced our design features. Our test flights are stronger so we are very hopeful to be among the winning teams”, he maintained.

The objective of building versatile aircraft is to make it capable to complete the given tasks, including three flight missions which range from carrying specific load, dropping a specified package on a desired landing area and doing so at a high speed, said Mr Ahmad.

He said that the students were working to improve the aircraft, which would cost Rs0.2 million.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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