Activity: Quadcopter Electronics Installation

Date of activity: 30 Oct 2017
Subject: Quadcopter Electronics Installation
Description: With the project well underway, this evening's entertainment consisted of installing the electronics that control the quadcopter.  This proved not as easy as it sounds, and was not quite completed successfully in the available time.

Activity: Quadcopter Assembly (start)

Date of activity: 09 Oct 2017
Subject: Quadcopter Airframe Assembly
Description: David led a few brave souls in beginning the assembly of the recently-received STEM quadcopter kit.  While we were not able to complete assembly in the available time, we did get quite a bit done.

Presentation: April 2017

This month's AE presenter: David
Date of presentation: 10 Apr 2017
Subject: Quadcopter Aerodynamics
Description: I discussed how the multi-fixed-rotor design is an alternative to conventional collective-pitch rotors. Everything is a trade-off in engineering. Long, high-aspect-ration rotors are more efficient that propellers. However, large rotors have a lot of rotating mass, so thrust changes must be made using a complex swashplate to change the rotor pitch. Quadcopters with small propellers are less efficient, but simple because thrust changes can be made by changing the speed of the fixed propeller. We discussed the aerodynamics of quad copters including handling torque, yaw pitch, roll, and lift. A key enabling technology for quadcopters is the electric motor. Although flight times are usually short to keep lightweight batteries, electric motors can have up to a 5x increase in power vs. weight when compared to internal combustion motors. The discussion concluded with a brief history of multi-rotor aircraft. The first successful helicopter in 1923 was actually a quadcopter. In the near future, we will continue to see a proliferation of small UAVs based on the quadcopter design, and perhaps personal air taxis.

Presentation: March 2017

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 13 Mar 2017
Subject: Combined Safety / AE Jeopardy Game
Description: For a change of pace, safety officer Stephen Pierce and I decided to put together a joint presentation in the form of a Jeopardy-like game.  In this game we had five categories of six questions each (yes, it probably should have been the other way around!).  Three categories were AE-related: Fluid Dynamics, Air Traffic Control, and Early Aviation History.  (The other two were safety-related: ORM and Safety Regs.)  A fourth AE category, The Final Frontier, was never used.  A good time seemed to be had by all, even if the scorekeeping proved ultimately pointless.

Presentation: February 2017

This month's AE presenter: David
Date of presentation: 20 Feb 2017
Subject: STEM kit - Quadcopter
Description: From an email sent by David on 15-Feb:
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I finally received the "Build a Quad Copter" STEM kit.  Here is a summary of what I had put in the request for the kit:

•     Build the quadcopter with a couple senior members, include a couple cadets from Squadron 36.
•     Perform a density altitude experiment:
•  Fly in a cold environment, perhaps in a park outside in the morning. Baylands is a good park for this, Steven also suggested the RC park near Morgan Hill. Suspend a weight at the center of gravity, find the maximum that can be lifted.
•  Fly in a warm environment, perhaps the Squadron building with seats removed and the heater running. We should see that the max weight is less.
•     Give the following presentations to both Squadrons 80 and 36 as part of our AE program:
• General aerodynamics of a quad copter (Wikipedia on Vortex Ring State, Forbes article on what makes quadcopters so great for small drones).
• Use of drones, both commercial, hobby, SAR, and military.
• Effects of Density Altitude.
• (The above could be combined into one long preseo depending on the amount of content)

Thoughts on how to do this?  I can kick this off by giving a quick introduction to the project at the next Sq 80 meeting.
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Presentation: January 2017

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 30 Jan 2017
Subject: Pan Am Flight 7
Description: Jeff's presentation for January discussed Pan Am Flight 7, which was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser that went missing during a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii as part of a round-the-world trip in 1958.  The wreckage and many bodies were found a few days later.  The original report was unable to determine the cause of the crash, but recent research points to mechanical failure rather than sabotage as was originally suspected.

Download a zipped PDF of this presentation (159 KB).

Mea culpa...

Jeff here... I've been somewhat lax about posting my updates recently.  No excuse other than laziness.

I'll be backfilling those older updates little by little, but from this point forward, I intend to be a bit more diligent about getting that information updated on time.

Have a great 2017!

Presentation: December 2016

This month's AE presenter: David

Date of presentation: 12-Dec-2016

Subject: The GOES Satellite Program

Description: David discussed the Geostationary Orbital Environmental Satellite (GOES) program. This program started in 1975 to provide geostationary satellites for weather forecasting. There are two satellites active at any given time, GOES East and GOES West, with an online, or in-orbit, spare. This gives complete coverage of the Western Hemisphere to image clouds in the visible and infrared spectrums, and provide soundings to determine the amount of water vapor, cloud heights, and ozone layer. Current satellites also monitor solar weather. The satellites have the ability to receive and retransmit signals from the earth, and even have been used as communications satellites for Antarctic research stations. GOES satellites also used by the AFRCC to listen for ELTs. 

Aerospace Minute by David

On 7 Nov, David talked about the new international space station proposed by the International Space Craft Working Group (ISCWG). It would be built around 2020 and positioned in a cislunar orbit. If built, components would be placed in orbit using the Orion system. Electric thrusters would be used on the space station, and all environmental systems will be closed circuit.

Presentation: June 2016

This month's AE presenter: David

Date of presentation: 27-June-2016

Subject: The Stratolaunch Aircraft

Description: The Stratolaunch is a dual-fuselage, 6-engined aircraft designed to carry spacecraft to high altitudes for an aerial launch. It is under construction with a planned first-flight in late 2016. The all-composite aircraft's conceptual design was by Burt Rutan, and the intial project funding came from Paul Allen. When complete, it will be the largest aircraft (by wingspan) to ever fly. Engines and flight controls came from two Boeing 747's. It will be capable of launching spacecraft up to 500,000lb in weight. Potential spacecraft include the Dream Chaser IIS resupply ship.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 14 March, David talked about the new Virgin Galactic spacecraft, the Unity.  This spacecraft replaces the spacecraft that crashed in 2014. The spacecraft's wings are hinged to rotate into a feathered position. This allows the wings to create drag and prevent high heat on re-entry, yet not produce lift until it is needed. In 2014, the wings came unlocked, causing the fatal crash. The hinge mechanism has now been redesigned, and the new spacecraft is ready for testing. The spacecraft it piloted manually vs. through automation for simplicity and reliability. Tickets will cost approximately $250K for a flight. No word yet on the a date for the first flight.  Source for this AE Minute came from CNN  news.

Brewer Award

Squadron 80 is proud to announce that our External AE Officer was awarded the prestigious Frank G. Brewer, Sr Award for efforts to evangelize aviation to youth.

Aerospace Minute by David

On 25 January, David talked about the Dragon 2 program from SpaceX. SpaceX is a commercial spacecraft company founded by Elan Musk, who also founded eBay and Tesla. The goal of SpaceX is to build reusable commercial spacecraft. The Falcon 9 booster has successfully launched capsules to the ISS and been recovered using rockets to soften the landing. To date, it has not successfully landed on its landing gear, but they are close to making it work. The Dragon 2 will be a manned capsule. It will also be recovered using rockets. Currently, it is undergoing testing tethered to a crane. Tests will culminate with it being dropped from a helicopter and recovered on its landing gear.

No presentation: December 2015

December 2015 provided a very shortened schedule, as there were fewer meetings this month due to the holiday season, and therefore there was no meeting in which it was possible to sneak in an AE presentation.  So none was given this month.

Presentation: November 2015

This month's AE presenter: Jeff
Date of presentation: 16-Nov-2015 (? - not sure, could be a week either way)
Subject: Strange Aircraft
Description: For this presentation, Jeff scraped the dust off an old favorite that he's given at least once before and which proved popular again this time.  Over the century plus that mankind have been building heavier-than-air craft, some designs have definitely worked out better than others.  This presentation "celebrates" some of the less-successful designs throughout aviation history.  Note that these are not necessarily all "bad" designs, although most of them were, and several had fatal flaws (literally) that resulted in spectacular failures.  But they were all unusual designs by today's standards.

Download a zipped PDF of this presentation (1839 KB).