TU Delft Aerospace Engineering

🏆A historic achievement for student team Lambach Aircraft

After finishing 3rd place at last year's Payload Challenge, organized by the British Model Flying Association, the team returned for redemption this year.

This year, the team:
✈️ Achieved the highest Design Report & Technical Drawings score in the competition, outperforming every team from recent years by more than 10%.
✈️ Designed and built an RC aircraft weighing just 730 g
✈️ Successfully completed the qualification round and a round with 2 kg of payload.

For the final, the team made a risky decision. Despite challenging windy conditions and an aircraft designed right at the limits of what was possible, they went for the maximum 4 kg payload. The aircraft lifted off successfully and completed roughly one-third of the required circuit before an unexpected power failure caused it to crash.

But engineering is about more than a perfect flight. Thanks to an ultralight design and competitive reports, the team secured enough points to bring home the trophy🏆

This marks a historic success for Lambach Aircraft. TU Delft's name will now be engraved on the Payload Challenge trophy alongside renowned institutions including Beijing Institute of Technology, University of Stuttgart, PFH Göttingen, and many more.

Congratulations to the entire team 💙✈️ and follow their journey Lambach Aircraft

Flying squirrels perform some of the most agile aerial manoeuvres found in nature. Inspired by these remarkable gliding mammals, researchers developed the SquirrelDrone🐿️🤖, a flying robot that morphs its entire body during flight.

While most bio-inspired aerial robotics research focuses on birds, the SquirrelDrone combines coordinated limb movement, spine and tail morphing, and a flexible membrane that adapts to airflow. The result? Enhanced:
✅agility
✅manoeuvrability
✅stability in flight.

Through wind-tunnel testing and real-world flight experiments this study helps understanding how whole-body morphing contributes to glide flight in complex, cluttered environments such as forests and helps shaping fundamentally new aircraft designs.

The work by Salua Hamaza, Liming Zheng and Alexander van Zuijlen has been published in
Communications.

🔗Read more on our website!

Who will be joining these inspiring ladies? 🚀 The application for the IAWA scholarship 2026 is now open! Female BSc and MSc aerospace engineering students are invited to apply by 24 May, 2026. ⁠⁠

A word from last year's scholarship winner, Anna Moscati: ⁠⁠

“Winning the IAWA scholarship is an incredible honor. It reminds me why I chose aerospace: to be part of something bigger, to explore, to innovate, and to contribute in my own way. As a woman in this field, I’m not here to fit in, I’m here to grow, to lead, and to help break boundaries for those who come next. It reminds me how important it is to keep going, and to keep showing that women belong in every part of this industry.”⁠

Check our website for more information and how to apply: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/current/iawa-scholarship. Spread the word to fellow students! ⁠⁠