The Vertical Flying Society (VFS) is hosting the third annual Design-Build-Vertical Flight competition. It has full-time university and college students designing and building racing VTOL UAVs to compete in the fly-off event in July 2023, in addition to writing Preliminary and Final Technical Reports and giving a design presentation. Lambach has withdrawn from the competition, however the plan is to still build and flight-test the prototype. Continue reading
Just like the DBVF competition, the Student Design Competition is organized by the US Vertical Flight Society. Every year one of the big VTOL companies sponsors the design competition and issues a proposal. University teams can compete in Graduate and undergraduate categories, trying to come up with a design that fulfils the proposal. This year Sikorsky is sponsoring a competition, they have requested a high-speed VTOL aircraft that would be safe for the ground personnel standing next to the aircraft during hover. This aircraft is most likely to be used for search and rescue operations. Continue reading
In the 2022-23 academic year Lambach hosted an introductionary course to model aircraft/drone design and manufacturing. It consisted of several lectures, a tutorial session on XFLR5 aerodynamic design and a tutorial on 3D printing.
Afterwards students were invited to come up with their own ideas for projects, form groups, and join Lambach Aircraft to realize them. Continue reading
Project ATTIS (Aerial Terrain & Tracking Intelligence System) envisions developing a long-range autonomous with imaging sensors for conservation efforts in protected natural reserves.
Illegal farming, mining, and poaching have been great problems in such nature areas. The conventional method of surveillance is done through ground patrols that visit these areas one by one. This can be considered ineffective due to limited staff and tough access to the protected areas. Ground patrols are not very efficient in distributing resources because the areas are too large for patrols to find issues in time. As a result, resources from international NGOs, such as the WWF, are not being utilized optimally. Project ATTIS aims to provide a more efficient substitution for this problem. Continue reading
In 2021-22, Lambach was focused on competing in the Payload Challenge, hosted by the British Model Flying Association. Numerous Teams- from all around the world- partake in this exciting challenge.
The annual payload challenge consists of designing, building, and flying a UAV able to carry a heavy payload. The winning team would be the one able to carry the highest amount of payload weight compared to the weight of the UAV, for a given propulsion system.
A conventional, single-boom aircraft was built to carry a maximum [water] payload of 4kg. Continue reading
The goal of the Quantity Challenge, hosted by the British Model Flying Association‘s Quantity Challenge, is to design UAVs that can carry the maximum possible payload volume- as 150mm polystyrene spheres.
The this project was started in the 2020-21 academic year. The plan was to build not one, but two different design concepts, namely the Blended Wing Body (BWB) and the Conventional (CONV) configuration. Continue reading
Render of the Aurora UAV
A flying wing, utilising the unconventional bell shape lift distribution, for applications such as autonomous surveillance of farmers’ fields or delivery of goods: Project Aurora was to be a prototype for the aerodynamic design, and a test bed for the development of solar powered electronics. Continue reading
During the academic year of 2017-2018, Lambach Aircraft participated in the British Model Flying Association (BMFA) Payload challenge.
The annual payload challenge consists in designing, building, and flying a UAV able to carry a payload of water. The winning team would be the one able to carry the highest amount of payload weight compared to the weight of the UAV, for a given propulsion system. Continue reading
The S-Vision project took off in the summer of 2010 as the successor to the cancelled Impuls project. A regular layout was chosen to simplify the design. Also, the CS-VLA certification basis was chosen, which allows aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of 750 kg and a two-seat configuration.
The conceptual design was completed, but then the project was put on hiatus in the beginning of 2016. The project was then abandoned. Continue reading
The Impuls project was to be the successor flagship project of Lambach Aircraft, then still referred to as SSVOBB. It was started in 1994, while the HLII build was still ongoing. It was to be a two-seater aircraft with a pusher prop configuration that would provide a spectacular view. It would be built using (for the time) novel composite materials.
The conceptual design was soon finished and in 1996 production was started. Design and production continued alongside each other, however the project experienced many setbacks, culminating in it being halted in 2009. Continue reading
The story of the Lambach HL II starts at the annual Whitsuntide Flying Festival at Groningen airport in the year 1936. Because of the supremacy of the Germans, several leading Dutch industrials and prominent sports pilots got the funds for a Dutch aerobatics aircraft. At the same time the young Delft engineer Hugo Lambach had made some sketches for such an aircraft, and with this assignment, he could realize his dream. The production work started in January 1937 and it took only five and a half months to build the biplane. Continue reading