Bangalore students defy odds to build 'impossible' flight

Simply imagine trying to design and fly a remote-controlled plane whose design has been deemed practically not flyable. Well, students from BMS College of Engineering built such a plane for an international competition, SAE Aero Design West 2013 held in California recently, and not only did they manage to fly the plane but were also placed 18th out of a pool of 75 other designs from across the world.

The wooden plane in question was built using an archaic design called the ‘forward swept wing’ design, which is a design which many aeronautical designers don’t try out because of the instability it causes.

“Shadman Alam, a third year student approached me about taking part in this competition, and we selected about 20 students from the college to design a plane that is not only unique but can also fly,” explained Ram Rohit Rai, assistant professor at BMSCE and the head of the institute’s aerospace club. Rai went along with a student representative to demonstrate the plane at the competition earlier this April.

“Many contestants were surprised to see what we had built as we were really the only ones who had come up with such a plane. The organisers too were surprised when it took flight,” he said.

The competition was also attended by students from institutes across the world including Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA, Middle East Technical University, Turkey, Saint Louis University, USA, Politechnika Poznanska , Poland and Queens University, Ontario Canada.

Shadma Alam, the third year information science student who was one of the driving forces behind the team’s entry, said it was the challenge itself that made the team to choose the design. “We knew that other contestants were going in for a lot of traditional designs, and we wanted to tackle a problem and find a solution for it. One of the challenges of such a plane is that it is very unstable. So we split the wing and made it fly,” Alam said.