Design/Build/Fly is a radio-controlled aircraft competition sponsored by the American institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Cessna Aircraft Company, and Raytheon Missile Systems. The Office of Naval Research was also a sponsor until 2006. The competition is intended to challenge the AIAA student branches of each university to design, build, and fly a remote controlled airplane that can complete specific ground and flight missions. Additionally, the teams are required to submit a comprehensive design report detailing the most important aspects of their designs.

The competition rules and missions change every year. Usually, the teams must be and design to fly two missions in the competition fly-off, which is held towards the end of April, and also maintain a low Rated Aircraft Cost, a variable used to define the complexity of the design.

Different universities take different approaches at the competition. in most cases, the teams are composed of a mix of seniors and underclassmen doing DBF as an extracurricular activity. However, some universities use DBF for senior design projects and have teams of 15-25 people entirely made out of seniors. In general, historical results show that having more seniors in a team leads to a better final position at the competition.

Year	Location	1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place	5th Place
1997	Ragged Island, MD	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	Virginia Tech	Texas A&M University	Utah State University	West Virginia University
1998	Wichita, KS	University of Southern California	Texas A&M University	Syracuse University	University of Texas, Austin	Utah State University
1999	Pax River, MD	Utah State University	Oklahoma State University	University of Southern California	Georgia Tech	Texas A&M University
2000	Wichita, KS	Utah State University	Oklahoma State University 1	Illinois Institute of Technology	Georgia Tech	Oklahoma State University 2
2001	Pax River, MD	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	CalPoly - San Luis Obispo	Oklahoma State University (Black)	University of Southern California	Utah State University
2002	Wichita, KS	University of California, San Diego	University of Southern California	West Virginia University	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	Universita degli Studi di Roma
2003	Ridgely Airpark, MD	San Diego State University	CalPoly - San Luis Obispo	Universita degli Studi di Roma	University of Southern California	Oklahoma State University (Black)
2004	Wichita, KS	Oklahoma State University (Black)	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	University of Southern California	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign	CalPoly - San Luis Obispo
2005	Pax River, MD	Oklahoma State University (Black)	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	Washington State University	Virginia Tech	University of California, San Diego
2006	Wichita, KS	Oklahoma State University (Black)	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	CalPoly - San Luis Obispo	University of Southern California	Istambul institute of Technology
2007	Tucson, AZ	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	Purdue University	Oklahoma State University (Black)	Wichita State University
2008	Wichita, KS	Oklahoma State University (Black)	University of Texas, Austin (The Hornworks)	Oklahoma State University (Orange)	University of Texas, Austin (Orange Bullet)	University of Colorado - Boulder

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