What's the design project this year? (Aircraft, preferably. No one wants to know about the damn tumbleweed anymore.)

8/28/2008 11:03:12 AM

Actually the last two years they didn't do the tumbleweed for space design. The aero projects were still a hell of a lot more intense/cooler then the space ones though (or at least they were in the 2006-2007 school year when I graduated). But yes, I too am curious as to what Dr. Hall and Stearns have cooked up as this years design criteria.

Does anyone happen to know how last years senior design teams did at the AIAA conference/in general?

8/28/2008 4:33:14 PM

At AIAA last year, the aircraft design teams had the audacity to fucking LOSE. Assholes came in 3rd. The space team with the rocket abort system somethingorother got 1st place.
http://www.mae.ncsu.edu/news/ae/2008/20080520.html



2002-2003 - High Speed aircraft
Scirocco (my plane)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP6l2WbGCSs

2005-2006 -High Angle of Attack, with Thrust Vectoring
Zephyrus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtKBDNTYzk&feature=related

2006-2007 - Dual Wing Configuration (dual configurations, changable in-flight)
Loki (Wraith's plane)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcsS6486aM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQjpGMHcdY
Proteus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FmsXOlHLUs
Janus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN3gqnR0Cdo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZcckXn070Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl22wFZVelQ

2007-2008 - Reliable controls - Capable of sustaining any single control or structural failure
Tandemonium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y38gpXEhINs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFyr5ONJ9Mg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYsXiItMQPU
Goose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYWaPvkz3s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqBUm7SVWE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETU7DXvDtxA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzbESKECdhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-eGfPRnns
Phelan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es0J3ucWLSQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94HXQe7ADbA




[Edited on August 28, 2008 at 5:35 PM. Reason : ]

8/28/2008 5:14:40 PM

Goose looks pretty damn agile.

8/28/2008 7:20:05 PM

Damn they got third? Well at least an NCSU team won first.

9/3/2008 11:33:47 AM

^^ There's a difference between being agile and having poor control. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of Goose, but from several years of building these things and watching them fly, I'd say the thing is just so damned touchy that Dr Hall could barely breathe on the controls without sending it into some wild maneuver. It seems that for the second flight, they toned down the throws on their control surfaces to make it easier to fly (or they just flew it on a less windy day).

9/3/2008 1:04:48 PM

those are some cool projects. about how much does it cost to build something like that?

9/3/2008 1:45:35 PM