Presentation: January 2014

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 13-Jan-2014
Subject: Ten Billion Miles From Home: The Voyager Probes
Description: Jeff talked about the status of the Voyager missions 1 and 2, 35 years after their launch date.  He discussed a number of aspects to the missions, including: their location with respect to the solar system; where in the sky they could be found if one had a powerful enough telescope; Voyager 1's status as the most distant man-made object in existence; the 1970s technology used to build and monitor the probes; the trillions of bits of data they have sent back to Earth over their lifetimes; the faintness of their signals; their present condition; and finally, the imminent end to their transmissions (and therefore their missions) due to weakening of their nuclear power sources.

Download PDF (144kb)

Presentation: December 2013

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 9-Dec-2013
Subject: Video Night at Squadron 80
Description: Jeff took the easy way out on this occasion by showing a series of AE-related videos and images he had found through various sources on the Internet.  The items shown were:

• A picture of a Piper Cub (J-3) with a single-bladed propeller.  Yes, that's right - a single-bladed propeller.  The idea is that the single blade will always be passing through undisturbed air, rather than passing through the vortex caused by the previous blade's passage, and would therefore be more efficient.
• A video of aerial saw trimming.  This refers to a series of large saw blades connected in a long line through some sort of hollow bar, dangling from the underside of a helicopter, and used to trim trees along a high-voltage electrical line running through a very remote and very dense forest.  This method allowed trimming those trees that encroached on the electrical line far more quickly than sending work crews to trim them by hand.
• A video of some impressive aerobatic flying.  I'm not sure who the pilot is, although the file as I got it was named "Kirby".  Some of the procedures flown were absolutely jaw-dropping, such as flipping the plane over mid-flight, ending up with the tail ahead of the rest of the fuselage for a brief moment before recovering.
• Finally, a video taken of an airshow... in 1945!  The squadron had a lot of fun trying to identify the various aircraft on display, including a large number of captured German and other enemy planes.

Presentation: November 2013

This month's AE presenter: David
Date of presentation: 25-Nov-2013
Subject: Electric and Hybrid Aircraft
Description: Environmental concerns and associated legislation are forcing people to rethink aircraft propulsion systems. Last month, Jeff discussed alternatives to avgas. This month, David discussed alternatives to conventional internal combustion (reciprocating and gas turbine) engines. We are starting to see electric motors used for lightweight general aviation aircraft. Aircraft offered by Pipstrel and Greenwing for recreational flying are starting to approach the performance of some LSA. Gas-Eletric hybrid aircraft offer better performance since the internal combustion engine provide good power vs. weight for takeoff and climb.  Hybrids can be designed with motors in series or in parallel. Current limitations in battery technology and the weight associated with wiring prevents building heavier hybrid commercial airliners. Using electric and hybrid propulsion for larger transport aircraft is at least 20 years away.

Download PDF (3.4 MB)

Aerospace Minute by David

On 28 October, David talked about an electric airplane that EADS demonstrated at the Paris Airshow. EADs is the parent company of Airbus. The aircraft as dual ducted fans, 31ft wingspan, and weighs 1212 lbs. It can fly 1 hour at 110 mph, and carries two people in a tandem seating configuration. The interesting thing about the airplane is that it is fully aerobatic. It can fly for approximately 30 minutes when flying aerobatics. Although not yet a practical form of transportation, electric aircraft such as this are becoming more capable.

Presentation: October 2013

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 21-Oct-2013
Subject: Unleaded avgas - Ramifications for General Aviation
Description: This presentation was about the proposed elimination of lead compounds from avgas (aviation fuel), and what the ramifications of that would be for all of General Aviation (GA).  Jeff talked about proposed changes that would require unleaded fuel to become available, who would be affected by these changes and how, and what companies are working on "drop-in" replacements for 100LL and where their products stand in the development cycle.  A spirited discussion ensued and it seems that everyone learned something, which is of course the goal.

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Reid-Hillview Airport Day

David Hartman participated in the Reid-Hillview Airport Day on 19-October-2013.  Squadron 80 put N9483E on display and set up a booth. David assisted with giving people tours of the aircraft and letting kids sit in the left seat. This provided an opportunity to discuss the three missions of CAP with the parents. It gave a chance to show both kids and adults how the controls work and explain what makes an airplane fly. The show was a success, there was always a line, and many people went away with a new appreciation for aviation. Not only was this a chance to promote the mission of CAP, but allowed us to teach the general public about general aviation.

Bonus Aerospace Minute by Jeff

Also on 30-September, Jeff brought up the recent findings made by the Mars rover Curiosity and its mission regarding the discovery of significant quantities of water in the Martian soil.  These findings indicate that the soil consists of up to 2% water, which works out to roughly a quart of water in each cubic foot of soil.  This would make the extraction of enough water to meet the needs of future Martian explorers possible, providing a huge advantage over shipping enough water from Earth to meet those needs.

Interestingly, the water contained in the Martian soil is rich in deuterium, a so-called "heavy" hydrogen isotope with an extra neutron in its nucleus as compared to protium, the predominant isotope.  The percentage of deuterium in the soil is roughly the same as the percentage of deuterium in the Martian atmosphere, implying that the soil is absorbing the water directly from the air.

One source among many: a space.com article.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 30-September, David talked about a new radar system being developed by Russia. According to this week's Aviation Week and Space Technology, Russia is developing a radar capable of detecting modern stealth aircraft. The system consists of a 30m truck mounted VHF antenna, and multiple L and S band modules. The 1m-2m wavelength transmission from the VHF antenna is supposedly capable of detecting like-sized control surfaces on aircraft, and the shorter wavelength antennas can be used to pinpoint the target after it has been identified. There is no way to verify the effectiveness of the system.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 23-September, David talked about the new light attack jet proposed by Cessna Aircraft. The jet is designed for the Intelligence Reconnoissance Surveillance / Strike (IRS/S) mission. It carries a crew of two, top speed of 450 knots, with an empty weight of 11,800 lbs and a max take-off of 21,250 lbs. The aircraft is twin-engined, random seating, and has large twin vertical stabilizers in a V configuration. There are no government contracts; the program is a Cessna initiative similar to what Northrop did with the F-5: build it and and see who is interested. The interesting thing is Cessna sees a market for this as an alternative to unmanned drones. At $3,000/hr, operational costs are less than many UAV systems.  The source for this information was the September issue of Flying Magazine.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 16-September, David talked about the recent sea trials with the F-35B. According to Aviation Week, the aircraft recently went through night crosswind vertical landing trials. Also discussed were highlights of the aircraft's fly-by-wire flight controls, and the system was contrasted with the AV-8 Harrier's mechanical systems.

Presentation: September 2013

This month's AE presenter: David
Date of presentation: 09-September 2013
Subject: The Yeager Award
Description: This presentation discussed the reasons behind the Yeager award (and, by extension, the AEPSM), how it relates to the other two primary missions of CAP, and an overview of the book Aerospace: The Journey of Flight and the information required to achieve the award.

Download Introduction: Yeager Award (PDF, 33KB)

Aerospace Minute by David

On 26-August, David's Aerospace Minute was about the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a planned civilian fly-by of Mars by a group headed by multimillionnaire Dennis Tito.  This organization intends to launch a manned mission to perform a flyby of the planet Mars in January 2018.

Click here for more information

Presentation: August 2013

This month's AE presenter: David
Date of presentation: 12-August 2013
Subject: Pan American Clippers
Description: This presentation gave an overview of the history of the Pan Am Airlines company - how it got its start, expansion into first the Caribbean, then the Pacific Ocean, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean as well, then it discussed how the company fared following the end of World War II.  From its start, it was a complete system of exclusive routes, custom-built aircraft, navigation and weather stations, and ports of call on both land and sea.

Download PanAm Clippers (PDF, 3.1MB)

Aerospace Minute by David

On 5-August, as part of his new intended "Aerospace Minute" feature, David brought up an article in Aviation Week which discussed possible reasons why the pilots of the doomed Asiana flight might have made the mistakes they did that contributed to the crash.  Among the hypotheses advanced in the article was that the auto-pilot modes available might have proven very counter-intuitive and, in a moment of panic and/or indecision, a pilot may have made a very wrong decision based on how he thought the auto-pilot would behave.  (At least, that's my interpretation - David can probably shed more light on this.  I do not have the URL for the original article, if any.)

External Presentation by Coby: 9 Aug 2013

Major Andrew Dilworth, Lt. Colonel James Sena, and former Squadron 80 Commander Coby Sena made a presentation on CAP to the Santa Clara County Airmen's Association on 9 Aug 2013.

They talked about all three missions of CAP: Aerospace Education, Emergency Services, and Cadet Programs. In that context, they included a presentation on flight safety and aeronautical decision making.