KU Engineering students extend record in AIAA awards

LAWRENCE — Two design teams from the University of Kansas are extending the School of Engineering’s record in aerospace design, earning awards in prestigious competitions from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

KU teams finished second in the AIAA Graduate/Open Missile Systems Design Competition and in the Graduate Aircraft Design competition. These wins mark the KU School of Engineering’s 105th and 106th AIAA Design Awards over the past 49 years, more than any other institution in the history of the AIAA.

Students were recognized for ADDER, an anti-missile missile concept, and for the Advanced Executive Transport for High-Efficiency and Range (AETHER) business jet developed in collaboration with the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

“Our students continue to bring home more trophies than our award case can hold,” said Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, professor of aerospace engineering and faculty adviser for the student projects. “KU’s aerospace design teams successfully competed with others from much larger, more robustly funded departments and still did well.”

The ADDER team included KU students Charles Allen, Addison Fastenau, Jayda Hankins, team leader Ryan Hovey, Carson Richardson, Emily Shaw and Benjamin Smit. Barrett-Gonzalez said judges viewed the anti-missile missile concept as highly distinctive and praised its novel approaches to guidance, navigation and control, configuration and staging. He also highlighted the role of Assistant Professor of the Practice Adam Gorrell, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, who co-advised the missile design team.

“In my opinion, he put us in the prize-winning circle,” Barrett-Gonzalez said. “He met with missile design students at least weekly, providing insights that go beyond any textbook, especially with respect to seeker-target dynamics. His advice distinguished the KU design from most of the others, and the judges recognized that.”

The AETHER aircraft design was created by team leader Olivia Caudillo and KU students Callahan Elo, Gail Ghettalae, Ainsley Marshall, Steven Meis, Joshua Poznanski, Reanne Reida and Jennifer Relan, along with Simon Köhler and Jakob Staudt from the University of Stuttgart. The long-range, high-speed business jet impressed judges with its high Mach performance and the use of transonic shock pods that serve triple duty while enhancing the aircraft’s appearance. One reviewer said, “The AETHER was the best-looking business jet I’ve seen in 40 years of designing aircraft.”

The collaboration with Stuttgart builds on Barrett-Gonzalez’s ties to the German university, where he previously taught, and on years of Stuttgart students studying at KU. Joint projects with Stuttgart give students unique opportunities to work across time zones, languages and cultures.

“The experience is invaluable,” he said. “It expands students’ horizons. They solidify remote meeting skills, learn how to collaborate on assignments, share computer projects and even edit computer figures live together from half a world away.”

Beyond the designs themselves, Barrett-Gonzalez said KU’s achievements in AIAA competitions have become a key recruiting tool and a source of pride for the aerospace engineering department.

“One hundred fifty Jayhawks have claimed 53 such awards since 2006, a solid indicator of great program strength, directly supporting the state’s largest manufacturing industry,” he said. 

These real-world experiences and high-profile wins often attract attention from global companies like Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, Textron, Cessna, Beech, Learjet and Spirit, which Barrett-Gonzalez said hire KU aerospace design students in large numbers. The KU School of Engineering also serves as a major talent pipeline for Kansas' aerospace firms, Barrett-Gonzalez said, noting that even students who leave the state often send work back to Kansas or establish satellite offices there.

“The KU aerospace engineering department has been one of, if not the foremost, program in the world for aerospace design for nearly a half-century,” Barrett-Gonzalez said. “The KUAE design program acts as a lightning rod, attracting top talent from around the world, and as a result, that top talent generates more wins. When students want to attend a program that is strong in all the subdisciplines of aerospace engineering and learn how to put them together well, they come to KU.”