Inside DARPA’s Lift Challenge 2026 | Heavy-Lift Drones, Flite Fest & the Wright Brothers

What happens when DARPA turns a field beside the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force into an open X-plane competition? During my Second Transcontinental Expedition, I spent several days in Dayton, Ohio, documenting the 2026 DARPA Lift Challenge and Flite Fest. The challenge asked teams to build aircraft weighing no more than 55 pounds, carry at least 110 pounds, and complete a five-nautical-mile course—with an ultimate target of lifting four times the aircraft’s own weight. This video goes beyond the official flight results. I walked through the team tents, examined experimental aircraft up close, spoke with builders, and watched them repair, program and tune machines in real time. The designs included enormous lightweight helicopters, unconventional multirotors, inflatable structures, carbon-fiber trusses, cable-supported motor systems, tip-driven rotors, 3D-printed components and virtual swashplate control systems. Beside the competition, Flite Fest filled the sky with foam aircraft, experimental models, families, hobbyists and an extraordinary mass launch. After seeing the future of vertical flight, I traveled through Dayton’s aviation history—from the DARPA Grand Challenge, to the Lift Challenge, to the Wright Cycle Company and the place where the Wright brothers began building the future. It felt like watching the earliest experimental airplanes come alive again, except now the builders have carbon fiber, advanced composites, computer control, electric motors and modern flight software. This is the open, public experimental aviation future I have been dreaming about. Filmed and documented by Morgan Gross Second Transcontinental Expedition Presidential candidate, filmmaker and inventor FEC Candidate ID: P80008204 Official DARPA Lift Challenge information: https://www.darpa.mil/research/challe... Independent documentary footage and commentary. This video was not produced or endorsed by DARPA, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force or Flite Fest. #DARPALiftChallenge #FliteFest #ExperimentalAviation