Investigations: Flight

[Stick]

Today I was hoping our detailed study for Unit 2 would be energy from the nucleus or medical physics, but unfortunately we are doing flight instead because too many people are failing the tests so the staff thought an investigation topic would be better. Anyway, I virtually have no ideas for the task. If you could share some suggestions that are accessible enough for me to do, it would be greatly appreciated.

[nspire]

Make an aircraft out of material such as balsa wood, use principles of flight to guide you though your design

Attach a weight of some sort and fly it, record the distance, make observations

Some things you might want to look into are: Aerodynamic forces, angle of attack, wing configuration, Bernoulli's principle

[Conic]

You could make the wings detachable to test the effects of surface area and shape, a wind tunnel to measure lift for different angles of attack, test the effects of ailerons/rudder/elevators/flaps on the direction of flight, and many other experiments to test the information covered in the course.

Also, DO NOT use pine, or any wood other than Balsa. They are way too heavy.

[pi]

Contact an aerospace student *cough* b^3 *cough* for ideas, they are supposed to work with planes and stuff.

[Phy124]

Contact an aerospace student *cough* b^3 *cough* for ideas, they are supposed to work with planes and stuff.

*observes b^3 running in the opposite direction*

[Lasercookie]

I don't completely remember what I did, but I took toy aeroplanes for my flight thingo and then investigated why the toy aeroplanes wouldn't fly - how good the "aerofoil" on the toy plane was, what forces was keeping it down etc. / comparing that to the results that someone else got from an aerofoil they built (can't remember what material they used). I kind of had no idea what I was trying to achieve though, ending up kind of going with the flow.

(In other words, a few double sessions spent playing with toy aeroplanes and then hacking together a written report on it)

You could also just do the whole phonebook is kind of shaped like an aerofoil thing, grab a couple and see how well it works. Chop off a few pages, alter the shape of it and see how well it works then etc.

Edit: This floating paper aeroplane experiment is pretty cool too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zys3igBmhB8
(Yeah that video isn't legit, but would be a good way to troll the teacher - see why it isn't possible).

[Stick]

I came up with a really simple idea, actually. What I'm going to do is take part of Bernoulli's principle and investigate the relationship between surface area and lift, using a variety of different propellors (technically this is helicopter flight but my teacher was stupid enough to approve it). Anyway, using , I can find the net force of the propellor falling to the ground and then work out the lift force provided by the surface area. It's only an estimation at best, but it's accessible and I'm sure I can back it up with a good report.

[paulsterio]

I remember we used paper planes with standardised launchers and measured the effect of changing the wing size, something like that.