AirWorks Beta — a team from Pakistan’s National University of Sciences and Technology — won the UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) Challenge 2019 drone competition, which brought teams of young engineers from the UK and abroad to a ‘fly off’ at the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre in North Wales.

Teams in the UAS Challenge, which is organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (www.imeche.org), had to design, build and fly a drone for a specific project, which this year was simulating a humanitarian aid mission. T

he judges said the standard of entries this year was the highest they had seen in the competition, which was launched in 2014 and has grown in popularity.

Head judge Lambert Dopping-Herpenstal, said: “We saw more successful flights than in the previous five years, and the task we set this year was arguably the most complex.”

NUST’s AirWorks Beta team, which flew the only drone helicopter in this year’s competition, beat other teams from Pakistan (including another team from its own university), Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK.

This year’s competition was supported by the Welsh Government, along with GKN Aerospace, Bombardier, QinetiQ, Raytheon and Frazer-Nash Consultancy.

The results included: Grand Champions, NUST AirWorks Beta; Runner up, Queen’s University Belfast Hibernica Liberandum; Third place, Queen’s University Belfast Flytanic; Most promise, University of Southern Denmark SDU Eagles; Best design (sponsored by GKN Aerospace), Bath University Team Bath Drones; and Innovation (sponsored by Bombardier), Southampton Team VOLTA.