Flight Mission 2 Scores
The Vertical Flight Society
Design an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) drone tailored for wildfire response. The aircraft must navigate a standardized mission course while demonstrating speed, precision, and payload handling.
Performance is measured through safe completion of required maneuvers, payload delivery accuracy, autonomous operations, and endurance. Missions include manual piloting and autonomous navigation segments, with tasks such as controlled takeoff and landing, dropping sandbag payloads onto designated fire zones, and retrieving new payloads from supply points.
Scoring rewards teams for precision landings, successful payload drops, and autonomous mission execution, while penalties are given for unsafe operations or failed landings. The design challenge emphasizes innovation, efficiency, and mission readiness in wildfire scenarios.
The timeline runs from Letter of Intent submissions in October 2025 through final deliverables in March 2026, culminating in the fly-off competition April 7-10, 2026 at SURVICE Engineering facility in Churchville, Maryland.
2024 - 2025 Performance
At the 2024–2025 Vertical Flight Society Design-Build-Vertical Flight Competition, our team excelled in the payload drop mission. Despite high winds and a simplified manual-piloting setup, we placed second overall in the payload drop event and earned the special award for Most Precise Payload Drops, recognizing our accuracy in consistently landing payloads in the smallest and most challenging target zone
