Air Cargo Challenge 2026 

During the 2025/26 academic year, UGA prepared for the Air Cargo Challenge (ACC) with the official competition fly-off taking place in late July 2026. The ACC is a competition held biannually by the previous champion and this edition took place in Stuttgart, Germany, hosted by the previous winning team Akamodell Stuttgart. With the competition’s first edition taking place in 2003, it now carries a reputation for being one of Europe’s premier competitions attracting the world's best teams.

With over 38 teams competing from across Europe, Asia, Oceania and North America, competition was tough. UGA, and it's competitor Gannet, scored highly in static events including our documentation and presentation. After passing scrutineering, Gannet got off to a rocky start failing to climb to a sufficient altitude to take off in her first two attempts. Following this, she got off the ground sucessfully, flying two circuits of the bounding box.

An ill-fated change in wind direction sadly brought Gannet's flight to an abrupt end. UGA, however, left Stuttgart with heads held high, having scored higher than some incredibly impressive teams with significantly better financial backing. The ACC 2026 was another example of UGA's ability to compete at the world's premier stage for model aviation.