California Dreaming: LSU SAE Aero Advanced Class Team Places Fourth in Competition

Small plane posed in capstone atriumBATON ROUGE – Each year, college students from across the globe compete in the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Aero Design West, with teams from different engineering schools flying planes of their own design.

This year, LSU’s SAE Aero Advanced Class team, The Flying Tigers, traveled to Van Nuys, Calif., where they competed in the advanced class for the first time and placed fourth out of 21 teams. The competition, intended to provide undergraduate and graduate engineering students with a real-life engineering challenge, taught the six-person team how to work together and take the good with the bad.                       

The Flying Tigers—comprised of Jesse Parker, a mechanical engineering senior from Baton Rouge; Daniel Ahlskog, an electrical engineering senior from Jarreau, La.; Justin Guillory, a computer science and engineering senior from Lake Charles, La.; Sam Bahlinger, an ME senior from Baton Rouge; Connor Lorio, an ME senior from Luling, La.; and Reece Leleux, an EE senior from Lafayette, La. —began designing their plane as part of their senior capstone project.

“We had never met each other before this project, other than maybe just having the same classes,” Parker said. “We were given 40 projects to choose from and designing a plane was in all of our top five.”

The team began design and analytics in September 2017, with the actual building of the plane starting in December. It took two months to build the first plane, which has a wingspan of 11 feet, 5 inches. They also built two competition planes, with the first taking one month to build and the other just two weeks.

“It got easier each time,” Bahlinger said. “I used to fly RC [radio-controlled] planes as a kid, so this was a step up from that. I had a handle on some of it already.”

“Our goal was to build a plane that could carry weight and deliver two-pound sandbags to a provided target,” Parker said. “The main restrictions were aircraft weight and engine displacement.”

Though there are three classes to compete in at SAE Aero Design West (micro, regular, and advanced), the advanced class requires teams to have a systems approach to the design while integrating several engineering disciplines—aeronautical, mechanical, electrical and computer.

“The two biggest things that separate advanced from other groups are being able to use a gas engine and an extensive electronics suite that has a camera for spotting the target, calculating where those payloads are going to drop, and then having to send that data to a ground station to be recorded for the judges,” Parker said.

Though the LSU Aero team had flown its plane 29 times prior to the competition, it had a major setback the week before flying out to California.SAE Aero team posed with their plane.

“We crashed our plane,” Lorio said. “It was a total loss. Luckily, we had our spare in the works.”

Then, the day before the competition, the team’s plane made a crash landing that destroyed the panel holding the front landing gear together.

“We spent most of the night before the competition fixing that,” Lorio said.

During the two-day competition, however, the team flew its plane six times without a hitch. The Flying Tigers were in first place after the first round but eventually fell behind China, who took first place, and Poland, who took second and third place. Even so, LSU was the highest-scoring U.S. team in the competition.

“We were one of the only teams that actually flew all six rounds,” Parker said. “You have three minutes to get your telemetry acquired at your ground station and then take off. We were one of the only teams to acquire telemetry and hold it for every flight. We have that to be proud of.”

Even though the team didn’t take home an award, it is all smiles talking about the experience.

“It’s nice to go and compete against schools who have dedicated aerospace programs,” Lorio said. “If there are younger engineers interested in aerospace, this is a great way to get into it. They should check out next year’s competition, because the companies that sponsor it are out there taking resumes. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door.”

“I’ve always wanted to work in aerospace,” Ahlskog said. “I figured this was a good way to get experience.”

“I was interested in working for an aerospace company,” said Guillory, who has accepted a position with Lockheed Martin in Dallas. “For my job interview, I used this project as a main talking point and it worked out very well. I thought this was a very computer-based project for me to work on, so I was able to help in that aspect.”

The team hopes that LSU Engineering students will start an aero club and continue trying to compete nationally.

“We’re trying to get an aero club started at LSU so younger engineers can get familiar with the process,” Lorio said. “It’s a lot to do in one year and pick it up without any prior knowledge in designing an airplane.”

The team worked with three advisors throughout the process—LSU Interdisciplinary Capstone Coordinator “Captain” David Giurintano; LSU ME Professor Keith Gonthier, who secured the LaSPACE grant for the project; and LSU ME alumnus Jack Hawkins, who “provided a lot of insight for us,” Lorio said.

“I tell the teams every year, you always learn more from failures than successes,” Hawkins said. “This team really seemed to work well together and got along great.”

Though all six team members just graduated this spring, they are excited about the prospect of helping future LSU SAE Aero teams.

“We would love to come back and advise next year’s team,” Lorio said.

 

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Contact: Libby Haydel

Communications Specialist

225-578-4840

ehaydel1@lsu.edu