A week full of wind, sunshine, and engineering — the IMechE UAS Challenge 2025 in Buckminster, UK — will remain in the Blue Sparrow team’s memory as both a true test of skill and a great victory.
The week-long, intense competition went successfully: the team stayed united, the work went smoothly, and even in challenging conditions — be it rain, winds over 20 knots, or scorching heat — we kept a clear focus. The drone’s take-off happened at the very last moment, but flawlessly. The flight was technically correct, visually impressive for the spectators, and the entire system worked exactly as planned.
Two Special Awards for Innovation
Blue Sparrow received not one, but two special awards:
🏆 Innovation Award – for a bold and technically complex tailsitter-VTOL design
🏆 Operational Supportability Award – for the system’s reliability and the team’s skillful operations
Particular attention was drawn to our autonomous flight with payload delivery — for the first time in UAS Challenge history, a fully autonomous VTOL flight using a tailsitter drone was successfully completed. This marks a milestone achievement for both our team and the competition as a whole.
A Drone That Turned Heads
This year’s Blue Sparrow drone stood out with its debut configuration: a combination of a biplane fuselage and a quadrotor multicopter allows for vertical take-off followed by efficient horizontal forward flight. This solution combined lightness, durability, and aerodynamics. Speed, agility, and technical skill were our greatest assets.
International Competition
This year’s UAS Challenge brought together a record 33 teams from various countries, including Italy, China, Portugal, the Netherlands, and more.
The top three teams were:
🥇 1st place – Team Bath Drones (UK)
🥈 2nd place – Beihang Aeromodelling Team (China)
🥉 3rd place – Fly-Mi, Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
Estonia’s Blue Sparrow team, from the Estonian Aviation Academy, clearly stood out and proved that a team from a small country can compete with large and experienced universities.
Lessons for Next Year
Every major project offers valuable experiences to grow from:
- More test flights in competition configuration
- Testing changes one at a time to understand their impact
- More precise procedures for drone recovery or manual flight
- Less administration, more focus on technical work
- Competing with two ready drones could be a strategic next step
Our Team, Our Pride
While Estonia celebrated the Song and Dance Festival, the Blue Sparrow team proudly carried the blue-black-white flag on the international stage. We showed that we can achieve the impossible, worked until the very last moment, adapted to the situation, and proved that Blue Sparrow is ready to conquer the world.
We thank IMechE for organizing an excellent competition and all the supporters who made this special week possible. Our journey is only just beginning!
