Prize challenges create a portfolio of possibilities
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has named more than 120 teams invited to its Lift Challenge. In August, their aircraft are expected to compete on payload-to-weight performance in heavy vertical flight, with designs spanning refined engineering and unconventional approaches to propulsion, power, controls, aerodynamics, and integration.
The breadth of the field is not incidental. It is the strategic value of the challenge.