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AERO 1020: Theory Of Flight

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Balsa Wood Glider Project for AERO 1020: Theory of Flight
Goal
The goal of my glider is for it to sustain flight with an overall steady glide path to the ground, and have an efficient lift to weight ratio. Also, in completing my project, I want to strengthen my general understanding of the theory of flight and the forces that act upon an aircraft in flight.
Glider Information There is a great deal of factors that go in to play when trying to get an aircraft to sustain flight. However, research has suggested that there are a few key aspects of aircraft design and tweaking these components can make an aircraft be successful. A glider must be able to produce ample lift from its wings and be able to remain stable in the air. By learning and understand …show more content…

An airfoil uses Bernoulli’s theory to create a lower pressure on the top of the wing in comparison to the bottom. A way to create this low pressure is to add camber, the curvature of a cross section of a wing. “So, if you want a glider designed for distance, you would use a slight camber, that yields the maximum efficiency” (Brasseur, 2009). High camber wings generate more lift than low camber wings. The Edinburgh brothers stated that some are very thick and have a large amount of camber…they also have rather large drags (Edinburgh & Edinburgh, 1962). Drag is the pull of the airplane in the opposite path it is traveling. Therefore, it is very important when designing a wing, to find a happy medium with the amount of camber and the amount of drag that comes with it. There is also is drag that come with the friction of the air across the surface of the aircraft. Hurt (1992) found that, “because the air has viscosity, air will encounter resistance to flow over a surface…and accounts for the drag of skin friction”. To create even less drag, an airplane can be design very smooth with little disruption to the air traveling across its surface to allow the airplane to slip through the

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