In this week’s installment, I thought that I would discuss airfoils in more detail. All airplanes have wings, and all wings are shaped according to airfoils. Therefore, understanding airfoils is central in aircraft design. Airfoils can be obtained by taking cross-sections of a wing that are parallel to the fuselage. Therefore, they can provide much information about how air … [Read more...] about Airfoils
An Introduction to Flight
Supersonic Commercial Flight: Trials and Tribulations
This week, I thought I would take some time to write about a topic that has interested me since I was in elementary school: supersonic commercial flight. This area of aviation has been plagued with failures and hopes that were never realized. Nevertheless, it has a fascinating history. Let us begin in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy made a speech in which he … [Read more...] about Supersonic Commercial Flight: Trials and Tribulations
High-Speed Flight
Speed is one of the primary benefits of flying, and during the first half of the 20th century, there was a passionate effort to make planes faster. While slow, piston-engine aircraft dominated the 1930s, jet aircraft emerged by the end of World War II, and test pilot Chuck Yaeger ushered in the supersonic era when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. However, the troubled … [Read more...] about High-Speed Flight
Why Fly?
With aircraft being as popular as they are, and with governments and private corporations dedicating millions of dollars every year to aviation development, it is worth asking: Why fly? An informative study to help answer this question is “What Price Speed?” a research paper written by the aerodynamicists Theodore von Kármán and Giuseppe Gabrielli in 1950. In their paper, … [Read more...] about Why Fly?
Why Aircraft Look the Way They Do – An Introduction
Over the last hundred years, airplanes have become ubiquitous, and most passenger jets found in airports today have similar design characteristics. A typical airplane has a long body (also known as a fuselage), long wings that stick out on either side, and large tail assemblies at the very back. It turns out that with some basic principles in physics, we can understand why … [Read more...] about Why Aircraft Look the Way They Do – An Introduction