A group of AAE seniors earned second place in the NASA Advanced Air Vehicles Subsonic Commercial Transport Design Challenge.

The group included Emily Flaherty-Woods, Gautam Bhayani, Casey Graves, Nils Hebert, Mike Kobyra and Garron Scoon, who served as team lead. Prof. John Sullivan was the faculty advisor for the team.

The design challenge is a university competition to design a 200+ passenger airliner expected to enter service in 2035 that meets NASA’s Mid-Term goals for reduced fuel consumption, emissions and noise.

Purdue’s Project Indra aircraft entry incorporates a hybrid electric propulsion system using gear-boxed turbofan engines with CMC turbine blades and a high bypass ratio to reduce fuel consumption, noise and emissions.