Aerospace students are GoFly winners

A team of TU Delft students is one of the ten winners in the first round of Boeing's GoFly competition. The goal of the first round, whose prize was $20,000, was to design a vertical ascending and landing plane for one person. The Delft team, called Silverwing, has gone for a concept that is most comparable to a flying engine. 

With the GoFly competition, Boeing tries to stimulate the development of personal aircraft. Boeing requires that the aircraft must be much quieter and much smaller than existing aircraft. In addition, it must be able to take off and land vertically. The final of the competition takes place in September 2019 with a main prize of $1,000,000. There are many different concepts among the entries for the competition. There are helicopters, jetpacks and variants with wings. Silverwing has gone for a design with wings to fly larger distances with a much lower energy consumption

"The Silverwing design is unique because of its electric, reliable design that is nevertheless one of the fastest in the competition,” according to team founder Victor Sonneveld.

Silverwing will use the prize money from the first round to further develop and build their concept in 2019. In the end, Silverwing wants to make it possible for everyone to have an electric aircraft on their doorstep for personal use.