|
"There's more to this than just flinging your
aircraft through the air," Professor Larry Redekopp
admonishes his class as they prepare their gliders for the
2005 Glider Day. For over 20 years now the AME Department
has held this annual event as part of its AME 105
(Introduction to Aerospace Engineering) class.
|
|
|
No, Professor Redekopp is not waving, "Goodbye," to the glider.
Until about 0.1 sec. before, he had been steadying the glider's left
wing as it waited to be launched. On the far side of the launcher,
from the left, are Roshmi Mukherjee, Michael Yelle, Christopher
Urtnowski, Dylan Fincham, Dr. Adam Fincham (Dylan's father), Andreas
Figueroa (on the ladder), Faizal Kamaruddin, and Daniel Clayton.
|
|
|
As part of the lab sessions, students taking the course organize into
teams to build gliders from balsa, glue and MonoKote then
make some measurements of the gliders' wing span, chord, and area.
Once all these preparations have been made in the lab, the class meets
outdoors on Glider Day to measure flight performance.
On Glider Day, Friday, November 4, 2005 (For some reason Glider Day,
like the rest of us, favors Fridays!), the teams meet on the
intramural field. As the ritual begins, a team first "flings" their
plane by hand, a test flight, so they can trim their glider by
adjusting the wing position and possibly adding weight, in order to
achieve a straight glide. Once the glider is tuned up, the team moves
on to the launcher where the craft is launched at a preselected speed.
The glider flies down range
|
|
|
A crowd at the preparation table. Working on the 4 gliders are
(clockwise around the table starting at front) Cramer Qualls, Akop
Karapetyan, Heather Baratz, Torey Raphael, Daniel Martin, Zach
Witeof, Michael Bui, and Tiffany Schallert.
|
|
|
and the team measures the distance from launch point to touchdown.
They do this for several launch speeds.
Once the teams have gathered this data, they prepare a report in which
they calculate the parsite drag coefficient, the Oswald efficiency
factor, the maximum L/D (lift over drag), the minimum thrust required
to achieve steady, level flight and the corresponding velocity, the
minimum power required to achieve steady, level flight with that
corresponding velocity, and the maximum range for the glider. The
report also addresses the effects of changing various parameters from
these tested conditions along with plots of the drag and power
required as a function of velocity.
The AME 105 class is fortunate this year to be able to use a newly
redesigned launcher. Faizal Kamaruddin, an AME senior majoring in
Mechanical Engineering, rebuilt the control system on the launcher as
part of his AME 441 (Senior Lab) project. The new mechanism sports
magnetic sensors and a high resolution time base accurately control
and report the launch velocity. AME 105 students can now "fling" in
style.
—DP & LR
|
|
|
|
Brian Baumgarten, Colin Wright, Lauren Magee and David Crowley (all
in the foreground) return after a successful (It's still in one
piece!) flight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Torey, a guest, Daniel, Heather, and Zach gather around the
preparation table to record the weight of their plane.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Faizal Kamaruddin with his new launch controller.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Emily Hedges, Meir Basson, and Jenny Chu pose with their well-camoflaged (Well, around the USC campus, anyway.) glider.
|
|
|
|
|
