Aeronautical Engineering

Aeronautical engineering, the study of flight and how to successfully build flying machines. People have been intrigued by flight for thousands of years, recorded as early as 400 BC China, when small children would play with wooden toys reminiscent of helicopters.¹ These toys used by the early Chinese would later lead to incredible discoveries in aeronautical engineering, starting with one of the most influential aircraft designers, Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci is widely known for his accomplishments in art history. His paintings “The Last Supper”, “Vitruvian Man” and “The Mona Lisa” are some of the most recognized pieces in the art world today.² But if one were to look deep into one of da Vinci’s note books, they would see that he had another passion than just art: Flight. His love of flight took shape when he designed the “Ornithopter” a flying machine based off of the build of pigeons and bats, and the “Arial Screw” a.k.a. the first ever helicopter. Whether he actually built these items or not is a mystery, but his designs were the jumping off points for aeronautics. ³

Several years passed before the next big step was made in aeronautical engineering. Several people successfully build smaller machines such as Sir George Cayl’s hang glider and Marquis de Bacqueville’s flapping wings, but other than that no large leaps were made until 1903 when Wilbur and Orville Wright, (the Wright Brothers) tested the first successful bi-plane which flew for 59 seconds, covering 852 feet. This flight was the first successful sustained flight in the world.⁴

Since these times, the biggest moments in flight history haven’t been the actual aircrafts invented necessarily, but the people who flew them. In May of 1927, Charles Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize, for his solo non-stop flight from Long Island to Paris.⁵ After that, Amelia Earhart attempted to be the first female to make a non-stop solo flight across the pacific ocean, but unfortunately didn’t make it, but she is still considered, (in my opinion at least) to be a highly influential figure for both people in aerospace, and women.

Aeronautical engineering has made great leaps since its early days, going from wooden gliders to large metal aircrafts. So one of the questions that people often ask is how is it that something so heavy and blocky looking fly whereas a human being can’t? There are several factors that allow an airplane to fly, and keep a human on the ground.

One of the biggest reasons that a plane can fly and a person can’t is because of wingspan. In order to create a successful hang glider, where there isn’t a motor or anything to create extra force, the wingspan has to be more than the weight of the plane.⁶ What I mean by this is that if the weight of the plane is one pound, the wing area has to be over one foot. It is rather obvious that a human does not meet this requirement, considering that our arms aren’t each fifteen feet long and ten feet wide.

The second factor is force. The reason why an airplane can reach certain heights whereas a hang glider just glides is because the aircraft has extra force pushing it upward, i.e. an engine. In the situation that the wing area isn’t quite enough to hold the plane, or that it just matches the weight of the plane, an engine can be installed to help the plane reach its full potential. Another reason why a hang glider just glides rather flies is that one has to consider how the weight changes when someone is riding on the glider, versus not having anyone on the glider. Without anyone on it, the glider has the potential to lift off like a kite, whereas having a person riding on it keeps it weighted to the ground.

One of the final factors is the center of gravity. Typically, in an airplane, the center of gravity can be found around the cockpit of the plane. What keeps it from tipping over however is something called a moment. A moment is a secondary large amount of weight that is placed in the plane to keep it level, in most instances the moment can be found near the tail-end of the plane. A human, on the other hand, carries their center of gravity around their waist or stomach, and the “moment” in this situation would probably be the head. Since the moment is pushing straight down on the center of gravity, it makes it very difficult, (or impossible) to achieve lift.⁷

All of the reasons factor into the reason why aircrafts are able to achieve flight and a human being cannot. But despite lacking the ability to fly on our own, great inventors such as da Vinci and the Wright brothers still dreamt of seeing humans fly one day, so they created the machines that could fly for us. There will almost undoubtedly never be a day where a person can take flight all on their own, but now that we have these amazing resources created by the thousands of underappreciated people we call engineers, we don’t have to.

¹Frederick Lach, Donald. Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume II: A Century of Wonder. 2 vols.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

²"10 Most Famous Paintings of all Time." touropia. http://www.touropia.com/, 02/03/2011. Web.

29 April 2011. <http://www.touropia.com/most-famous-paintings/>.

³"Leonardo da Vinci." flyingmachines. http://www.flyingmachines.org/, 2003. Web. 29 April 2011.

<http://www.flyingmachines.org/davi.html>.

⁴"Milestones of Flight: 1903 Wright Flyer." nasm. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,

Web. 30 April 2011. <http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal100/wright1903.html>.

⁵ "Charles Lindbergh, An American Aviator." Charles Lindbergh, An American Aviator.

CharlesLindbergh.com, Web. 20 April 2011. <http://www.charleslindbergh.com/plane/firstplane.asp>.

⁶ Johnson, Paul. "Calculating the Wing Area for Constant Chord, Tapered and Delta Wings."

Airfield Models--Formulas, Straight and Tapered Wing Area. Airfield Models, 2003. Web. 25 April 2011. <http://www.airfieldmodels.com/information_source/math_and_science_of_model_aircraft/formulas/straight_tapered_and_delta_wing_area.htm>.

⁷ Benson, Tom. "Center of Gravity-cg, Aircraft Application." national aeronautics and space

administration. NASA, 11 Jul 2008. Web. 22 April 2011. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/acg.html.

Honors Engineering: Week Fourteen

For my final blog post, I decided to take a look back at all of my previous posts and just list our some of the information I found over the weeks.


Important people in aeronautical history:

• Leonardo da Vinci: Invented the first real flying machine and helicopter.
• Marquis de Bacqueville: Created imitation flapping wings and flew from his house to the Garden of Tuileries.
• Sir George Cayley: Built a glider and skimmed the ground and sailed from hilltops.
• The Wright Brothers: First successful flight of an airplane with an on board motor.
• Paul Cornu: Created first successful helicopter.
• Charles Lindbergh: First person to make a non-stop flight across the Atlantic ocean while flying solo.
• Amelia Earhart: First woman to attempt to make a non-stop flight across the Atlantic ocean while flying solo.

Big moments in flight history:

• 1500: Leonardo da Vinci sketched (and built?) a parachute, ornithopter (flying machine) and helicopter.
• 1742: Marquis de Bacqueville created imitation flapping wings and flew from his house, (on the Seine) to the Garden of Tuileries. The wings ceased to act mid-flight, ending in apparent disaster.
• 1890: Sir George Cayley built a glider with a 300 foot wing surface and skimmed the ground and sailed from hilltops.
• 1842: Henson patented a monoplane to be driven by a steam engine. Wing span was 140 feet.
• 1900: Wilbur and Orville Wright begin experimenting with glider with a front rudder. The glider hovered for just over a minute.
• 1903: Wilbur and Orville Wright tested a biplane glider which flew for 59 seconds, covering 852 feet. The plane weighed 750 pounds, first successful sustained flight in the world.

Important aspects in flight:

• Balance
• Gravity
• Acceleration
• Weight Displacement
• Force

Different types of air crafts:

• Fighter-planes
• Non-fighter planes
• Transport planes
• Helicopters

Honors Engineering: Week Thirteen

This week I decided to continue on my talk of helicopters from last week. I thought that I would go a bit more in depth as to the history of the helicopter.

I mentioned previously that Leonardo da Vinci was the first noted inventor of the helicopter. As it turns out, that information isn't entirely accurate. The helicopter can be traced back as far as 400 BC. In China, children would play with small bamboo toys very reminiscent to da Vinci's first helicopter design(s).

After da Vinci, the helicopter went through several revisions. One well known contributor to the helicopter was Thomas Edison. He attempted putting an internal combustion engine into the machine, but unfortunately the air craft exploded. The internal combustion engine was redesigned later by Ján Bahýľ.

The first successful flight of a helicopter was conducted by Paul Cornu on 13 November 1907. The contraption lifted up 1 foot. There had been one flight previously which lifted up 2 feet, but it was so unsteady it could not be counted as "successful".

Honors Engineering: Week Twelve

This week I decided to look into Helicopters. Helicopters are interesting because in many ways they are much more difficult to fly and build compared to an airplane.

The helicopter was initially imagined by Leonardo da Vinci. He based its design off of that of a screw. A screw has threads on it that continue to descend at a constant rate. He decided to take that idea and applied it to a flying machine. The threads on the screw became the propeller of the helicopter, since air would continue to circulate around the propeller at a constant rate, allowing it to remain airborne. It is not certain that this design worked, or was even built, but it is rumored that da Vinci did in fact build the machine, and that it hovered successfully.

The helicopter has been designed and redesigned several times now, but it still a tricky machine to opperate. The helicopter depends less on thrust and gravity, and more on balance. Considering the somewhat awkward shape of the helicopter, it is easy to understand why balancing an object such as itself would be a difficult task to complete successfully. It is very front heavy and has a long tail sticking out at the back.

The helicopter depends very heavily on the gyroscope. The gyroscope was initially thought of in 1817 by Johann Bohnenberger, and was later redesigned by Walter R. Johnson. The gyroscope is basically an internal compass or a guidance system. It assists in balance and guidence, which is why it helps the helicopter so greatly.

Honors Engineering: Week Eleven

This week I decided to talk a bit about my 24 Hour Engineer. My friend Eric Harmatz is an aerospace engineering major at Embry-Riddle University in Florida. He used to go to High Tech High Media Arts with me and graduated last year, (2010).

Throughout the entire time I have known Eric, he has been in love with airplanes. He would try to adjust as many of his class projects and assignments in order to make them about airplanes or flying. A few years ago in engineering class, he created a miniature helicopter with an on-board computer. This may sound easy enough, but getting this to balance without the help of a remote control proved to be an incredibly difficult task.

Already, Eric has started working in project groups at college designing small air crafts. Eric has always been a fan of flying because his grandfather was a pilot, (as were both of mine, so I can understand his fascination with air crafts). He started working on his pilots license while in high school and should be receiving his official license this May.

Honors Engineering: Week Ten

This week I decided to look into gravity. Gravity is one of those things that we all know about, and usually have a basic understanding of, but I wanted to know a bit more about it.

Gravity is basically a force that keeps you weighted down so you don't float off into space. However, if gravity is too dense, it can actually crush you, (the proof is when people get older and their bones start getting more and more brittle, gravity is actually part of the reason why they start to slouch and "shrink"). How this relates to airplanes is based on where an airplane climbs to.

As we all know, airplanes go several thousand feet into the air before reaching "cruising speed". The reason for this is partially because of gravity density. While the plane isn't so high up people start floating around, it is high enough that it can comfortably move without the constant pressure pushing down on the plane.

A well known myth relating to gravity is that the moon is zero-gravity. This is absolutely not true. The moon has very low gravity, far lower than what we have here on earth, but it does have enough gravity that when astronauts and spaceships land on the moon, they don't immediately go floating off. (This is also why the tape of Neil Armstrong dropping something once he steps on the moon does not prove the the moon landing "wasn't real").

Honors Engineering: Week Nine

I was out of town this week, so I wasn't able to do as much research as normal. While I was out of town though, I went to a museum where there was a large display of paper. This reminded me of paper airplanes, which made me think of aerodynamics. I know a lot about how aerodynamics work, but I have heard that aerodynamics don't apply to things under a certain size, so I decided to find out what size that was.

I found out that all things are affected by aerodynamics, but their ability to fly based on that is greater the larger the object is. So, if you threw a paper airplane and a paper-ball made out of same size paper, aerodynamics will obviously favor the plane because there is less area for wind to resist against. However, the difference in distance might only be a few feet. If you have a ball the size of an actual airplane though, most likely it wouldn't even be able to get off of the ground because the level of resistance would be too great.