Clean sweep win for aerospace teams in AIAA’s aircraft design competition

Students in Jason Merret’s senior aircraft design course swept the top four places in the 2026 AIAA Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design Competition – that’s first, second, second and third. Ever since Merret left his successful career at Gulfstream in 2018 to join the faculty in The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Aerospace Engineering he has dreamed of this sweeping win.

“We’ve consistently ranked high, one year taking first and second and another year taking first and third, but this year, with the addition of the tie for second place was an especially satisfying accomplishment for the student teams,” Merret said.

Every year AIAA offers a different industry-driven request. This year’s was for a next-generation carrier-based strike fighter to replace the F/A-18/E/F Super Hornet. The aircraft would support both air-to-air combat and strike missions from an aircraft carrier. Design requirements included combat radius, carrier launch and recovery, approach speed, dash performance, sustained turn rate, external store capability, dimensional compatibility and affordability.

Casey Keymolen led the first place team in their design of Kestrel. He said they set out to not just meet the requirements, but to surpass them, such as exceeding the combat radius requirement. Their design choices for the tail and engine were big departures from the Super Hornet’s vertical tail and dual engines.   

“We wanted to move away from the conventional, to create a unique design,” Keymolen said. “We understood going with the V-tail was going to be very difficult, but we wanted to be different than other groups and we knew that it could be more efficient if we were able to conquer the math.

Keymolen said they got the idea from examining configurations for drones and other uncrewed aerial vehicles.

“It ended up working really well for us,” he said.

The RFP stated, “The combat aircraft unit cost has been inexorably increasing with time. In order to maintain the number of aircraft in the Navy’s inventory, this trend must be broken.” Keymolen said the biggest decision his team made to lower the cost was to use a single engine.

“The Super Hornet has twin engines, but we saw a huge cost difference by using a single engine,” he said. “Using one engine saved us a good amount compared to other aircraft and it was also more cost-efficient in terms of the fuel.”

“We also had a really, good structures engineer on our team who saved some money on the structure in some areas that all allowed us some leeway to use less titanium or other high-cost alloys in other areas.”

In addition to Keymolen, team Monkey's Fist members included Ting Yu Lee (aerodynamics and ordnance/drop/refill); Karsten Peters (structures/configuration); Alex Greene (mass properties, loads & dynamics/interior design); Riyad Babayev (propulsion/landing gear); John Klis (performance/low observability); Emily Goodman (stability and control/repair and maintenance); and Cougar Forsythe (systems/cost and avionics.

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Ben Folgers, who led one of the second place winning teams, said the most difficult technical challenge his team faced in designing Jackrabbit was finding the balance between stealth and functionality.

“Throughout the design process, the team considered several different configurations, ranging from a fully tailless aircraft to designs incorporating canards,” Folgers said. “Ultimately, we settled on a two-surface V-tail configuration that provides a balance between reduced radar signature, aerodynamic performance, and overall aircraft functionality. This decision required us to consider how each configuration would affect stability, control, stealth, and maneuverability. The final V-tail design offered the best overall compromise while still meeting the key requirements of the aircraft.”

In addition to Folgers, team members included Joshua Veranga (structures/loads and dynamics); Katie Lee (mass properties/ordnance/drop/refill; Ray Zhao (aerodynamics/acoustics, emissions and low observability); Samuel Nutlis (stability and control/configuration/interior design); Eashan Paranjpe (systems/cost/certification); Hamza Rimawi (propulsion/avionics); and Edward Niewinski (performance/landing gear.

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Luke McNamara, whose team tied for second place, said one of the biggest technical challenges they faced in designing Regulus was maintaining consistency across all the aircraft designs and analyses.

“As parts of the team evolved, we had to coordinate between the aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and performance disciplines so that changes in one area were reflected across the rest of the design,” McNamara said. “We addressed this through regular team check-ins and design reviews, which helped us catch inconsistencies early and make decisions as a group.”

McNamara said the level of constant communication and checking in allowed them to bring all their individual analyses together into one cohesive aircraft design.

In addition to McNamara, team Catshank members included Junyi Cao (performance/certification); Rushil Malik (structures/landing gear); Dillon Mulrooney (systems/ordnance/drop/refill and avionics); Joey Pecaro (propulsion/cost and interior design); Aadyanth Rao (stability and control/configuration); Marco Soto (mass properties/repair and maintenance); and Jonah Wu (aerodynamics/survivability and observability.

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Anika Knipple led the team that designed F/A-49 Marlin, placing third in the competition. She said,designing an affordable naval fighter that would break the trend of rapidly increasing aircraft costs was her team’s biggest challenge.

“Cost was something we considered with pretty much every major design decision -- from the materials we selected for the primary structure to the engine we ultimately chose,” Knipple said.

“One of the bigger decisions we made was going with external ordnance rather than internal weapon bays, which helped reduce both airframe and operational costs. We also leveraged technology readiness level 9 equipment for the avionics package, because those systems had already been successfully implemented and would help reduce integration risk and cost.”

In addition to Knipple, team Bowline included team members Nicholas Djordjevic (aerodynamics/survivability and observability; Vivek Nair (structures/configuration); Adrian Tayag (mass properties/landing gear); Ruben Benjankar (propulsion/ordnance); Eric Chiang (performance/interiors); Johnny Hu (stability and control/maintenance and repair) and Adam Mateja (systems avionics/certification).

For the curious, the team names -- Monkey’s Fist, Boom Hitch, Catshank and Bowline -- are all names of nautical knots. Each year, Merret offers a list of names from a specific category for the team members to choose from rather than calling the teams 1, 2, 3 and 4.