NASA PAV Challenge Winners

Accordng to c|net news, winners were chosen Saturday in the NASA-sponsored competition of Personal Aircraft Vehicles, the first annual PAV Challenge. The Cafe Foundation, a nonprofit group of flight test engineers, held the race at the Charles Schultz Sonoma County Airport.

The winner was the modified short-wing Pipistrel Virus, a Slovenia-built sport aircraft. A highly modified kit plane, Vans RV-4, won the speed challenge and the low-noise challenge. A Cessna 172, the most popular small plane in production since the 40s, won the handling competition.

The PAV race is part of the NASA Centennial Challenges, a series of competitions that support space exploration and aviation technologies in private industry. The Beam Challenge and the Tether Challenge are coming up in October. (full Challenge list and descriptions)

The blog, Space Prizes has detailed information about space-related competitions, past teams and winners, and annual competitions like the National Space Society's Art Prize (November 30 submission deadline). No doubt the Society's sponsored art work will grace the rooms of Galactic Suite, the space hotel scheduled to launch in 2012.