UT-26 MAPLE

Completed as the Airframe Captain/Chief Engineer on the University of Toronto Aerospace Team (SAE)

UT-26 prepped and waiting for the competition flight line to open in Fort Worth, Texas

Within 15 months of joining the team, I faced my biggest challenge yet, having been appointed as the SAE Airframe Captain / Chief Engineer. I stepped up to lead 3 of our team's 5 subteams, and to take responsibility for the design, analysis, and assembly of our 2025-26 aircraft. Having learned many lessons over my short time on the team, and having experience in a number of previous leadership positions, I felt ready to take on this role.

The Challenge:

The rules for the 2025-26 year remained mostly unchanged from the previous year. The mission remained to build an autonomous 3.5lb aircraft capable of conventional takeoffs and landings, with the ability to land, deliver and capture a payload, and take off from an 8x8 ft landing zone.

The Design:

Learning from last year's mistakes, we made a number of design modifications:

Reduce the size of the aircraft. We previously aimed to house our payload internally, but this greatly enlarged our aircraft's footprint and weight. Turning our fuselage into a lifting body also helped us turn it into a dual purpose component.
Design for manufacturing. Although more optimal for aerodynamics and performance, our old wing was far too complicated to manufacture quickly, accurately, and consistently. Key fasteners and hardware required very precise and steady hands... which are usually not something we have in the field, under pressure, and in the cold!
Double and triple check stability. Last year, both ground and airborne static stability were big issues for us. Unconsidered aspects of the design, like motor blanketing and a taller landing gear for payload manipulation needed to be accounted for. Additional tools and analyses were incorporated into our design cycle for this.

Successes:

We flew! For the first time in its history, our team had a successful maiden flight, achieving stable(ish) horizontal flight! Unlike the previous year, we managed to get our proof-of-flight for competition months in advance. We also managed successful horizontal-vertical and vertical-horizontal transitions.
We remained on schedule! Last year, we had huge delays with manufacturing and CAD. As the co-captain I made it my goal to keep us on track, plan for contingencies and make sure we kept lead times in mind each step of the way.

Issues Faced:

Huge turnover. As it often goes with student design teams, we lost many members. About 60% of our team from last year remained. We also onboarded 4 new leads out of our 5, and 2 Chief Engineer / Captains. Despite this, we managed to get everyone transitioned smoothly, and found a great team of new engaged members.
Canadian weather. Typically, we finish building our plane in the winter, and only have a very short window to test fly our aircraft before competition. Despite the rough Toronto winters, we powered through, hoping to give ourselves enough time to test our payload and software. We shoveled our own runways, and pushed through bitterly cold test flight days in February.
Electrical and Propulsion. This year we opted for smaller motors and propellers to minimize our airframe size while still meeting the minimum allowable propeller clearance. Although in theory, our avionics and propulsion selections were adequate for our design, we ran into issues with voltage sagging and other non-idealities that prevented us from getting the necessary thrust to maintain vertical flight in gusty conditions. Unfortunately, we realized this too late, only after post-competition testing.

Results

After all, we submitted a fantastic design report, delivered a smooth oral presentation, and flew 4 flights on competition weekend; tripling our flight score from last year. We earned 3rd place in the Design Report, earned the team's best ever oral presentation score, and managed to get 4th Overall; our best placement at SAE Aero Design!