You would hardly find such rounded passengers on a regular air route. These are not people, but billiard balls. The Salamander aircraft was tasked with transporting them as part of the Air Cargo Challenge. This year, due to technical defects, the Chicken Wings team was less successful in the competition, winning 19th place. In spite of this, they brought a lot of experience from Germany.

"This year's competition task was to transport as much load as possible, as quickly, as far and as efficiently as possible. The cargo consisted of billiard balls, which were supposed to represent the passengers of the aircraft on a smaller scale. There were certain requirements as to how the "passengers" should be placed on the plane, that they must each have their own "seat", i.e. be separated from each other in some way. And it must be possible to load and unload them in the shortest possible time, which was another category scored," says Adam Pilát, head of the Chicken Wings student team.

The "Chickens" team, as the students sometimes call themselves with exaggeration, embarks on the design and production of a new model of the aircraft every year. With it, they then participate in a selected international competition. This year, they were preparing for the Air Cargo Challenge in Aachen, Germany, where strong competition from student teams from all over the world met in mid-July.

In addition to the competition task, the organizers gave the competitors one more strict limit. "The aircraft must fit into a relatively small box, specifically 20x20x100 centimetres, which greatly limited its size. At the same time, the assignment directly called for the aircraft to be all-laminate. Last year we built a wooden aircraft, so returning to this production technology was a bit of a challenge for us. We tried to optimize the aircraft as best as possible in the calculation phase so that our approach to the solution was as efficient as possible," explains Pilát.

In addition to thorough calculations, this year the students also proceeded to produce a prototype on which they fine-tuned the details. "I think we've perfected a lot of design elements. The aircraft is properly dimensioned, not too heavy and with good aerodynamic design. It features stabilization because the rules allow for different control systems to assist the pilot. We have also modified and tuned these," says Pilát, adding that the team has been working on the aircraft since September.

Each of the round passengers weighed around two hundred grams, and the Salamander aircraft successfully carried twelve of them in tests. "We gradually added balls, according to our flight performance. This approach has worked well for us, it's better than losing the plane right away due to too big ambitions," says Pilát with a smile, although he adds that in the end, the team did not do well in this year's competition due to several technical defects and bad weather and finished in 19th place out of thirty teams.

At the moment when this article began to be written, the plane did not yet have a name. It received the name Salamander only after completion, just before the competition. "It is our tradition. We do not want to speak too soon, so only at the moment when we have the final plane, the whole team meet in the workshop and come up with a name – most often based on how it affects us," says Pilát. In the past, for example, the heavenly killer whale ORCA, the shark shark or the elegant Black Swan have taken off.

For Adam Pilát, this year's competition has a bittersweet taste, as he is terminating his work in the team. He successfully completed his studies in June and is now looking for a job in the aviation industry. "I would like to continue in what I have learned here in this team," says the new engineer in the field of aircraft construction.

Next year, the "Chickens" consider participating in the New Flying Competition in the United States. By then, Adam Pilát will keep his fingers crossed from a distance. And the construction of another unique model will take place under the baton of a new student at the helm of the team.