Profile Home | Media | Favorites | Playlists | Friends | Groups | Blogs | Picture Gallery | Comments | Subscribers

What a fantastic year we had last year! Thanks to the support of Model Airplane News and the tireless dedication of the 2009 design team, we were able to accomplish big things with our design project! Our story brought a lot of attention and I am proud to say that this year we are an official University-recognized design group! We recruited members of the sophomore and junior class at Texas A&M for 2010 Aerodesign competition team and were stunned by the shear number of applicants this year! The aerospace department is buzzing with excitement for this year's competition - we couldn't have done it without you and we offer all of our followers our deepest gratitude.

This year, our team has grown from 7 members to 14 - every member was competitively selected from a pool of over 50 applicants and I am confident that we will make strides over last year's entry.

To date, the team has been busy with conceptual design and initial modeling and simulation on this year's AeroDesign competition entry. Certain aspects of the competition have changed for 2010 including an increased overall aircraft size allowance and the prohibition of certain composite materials such as FRP, etc. Size limitations have increased from a length-width-height measure of 175 inches to 200 inches - we plan on fully taking advantage of this size increase by implementing a longer, higher-lift and higher-aspect-ratio wing, a minimal fuselage, and increased control authority via larger control surfaces and increased aircraft stability. More details to come! 

Structures Team - November 6, 2009
The structures team has been analyzing ribs and wing structures already decided on the rib spacing and the overall spar design.  The original back spar design has just been modified to be able to support the flaps and aileron.  We are currently working on the SolidWorks model of the aircraft.  We have experienced som issues with the solid modeling program, but we continue to soldier on.  We have ben doing FEM structural analysis using ABAQUS and looking for ways to make our structure as light-weight and structurally sound as possible. The plan is to stick to the "laminated" spar we analyzed earlier. More updates to come!


Aerodynamics Team 
Our team has been working hard the past few weeks. Using the program XFLR5, we analyzed a variety of low-Reynolds Number airfoils, comparing values of lift, drag, and wing tip vorticies. After deciding as a group to go forward using the Eppler 216 airfoil, we continued to use XFLR5 to model different wing shapes and planforms, ultimately deciding to use a tappered wing with root chord 18 in and a tip of 14 in. Right now, we are focusing on getting lift and drag numbers to the Structures and Control groups, while also beginnig work on our wind tunnel model, which we plan on running in the next few weeks. Some of the issues we are running into concern programming limitations using XFLR5 to analyze the flow quality around our fuselage, especially when trying to see how much drag our fuselage will create and how much this will affect the lift of our wing simulations. Bottom line, we are trying to gauge how realistic our values are and to determine what to expect once we get to flight testing. 

Stability and Control:
The stability and control team has been focusing on taking the values for CG, AC, moments, etc provided by the propulsion and aerodynamics teams and implementing them into a design for the flaps, ailerons, elevator, and rudders. As of right now, the team has decided on building a "flying wing with a tail" - the tail section would provide a good measure of stability and controlability to an otherwise unstable flying wing platform. We have finished sizing the elevators and rudders - our next task is to size the flaps and ailerons. We are also studying the effects of adding spoilers and speed breaks to our model. SInce the wing will be very large with a very high lift, we think the spoilers and airbreaks would help the plane when it comes in for landing with relatively low weight.

Propulsion and Avionics:
The propulsion and avionics team's responsibilities include testing and optimizing the engine and prop, as well as the overall design of the aircraft control system and radio system. We have designed and built a thrust measuring test stand for thhe engine. Using this stand we have been testing a wide variety of propellers, carb settings, mixture settings, etc to find the combination that provides us with the biggest possible thrust. Since the competition doesn't require long endurance, we can fly the entire circuit at full throttle without a problem. Our top props have been APC and Master Airscrew 13x6's and 14x4's. Hitec RCD has generously donated a radio system - once we receive it we will start servo testing and control system design 

*****************************************************************************************************************

November 20,2009

Propulsion and Avionics:
Prop testing was successful with some minor issues.  We had some scares early on with getting our engine to start for every run, but we have effectively overcome that task.  The APC props have been the strongest ones we have tested, providing the max allowable thrust, when compared to the Master Airscrew props.  Our radio system just came in this week and our team is excited to begin servo testing!  With these tests, we will be able to provide data for the stability and control team concerning elevator and rudder positioning for the overall control system design.


*****************************************************************************************************************
November 22, 2009


*****************************************************************************************************************
November 24, 2009

Structures:

The ribs are still being examined to determine where the lightening holes can be made.    The support for the engine and fuel tank has now been added to our base plate.  We still need to determine where we can make lightening holes on it as well. The goal here is to save as much weight as possible while making our aircraft tough enough to survive flight with a good deal of payload.  It has also been decided to have a different spar towards the wing root (wider at the root than the tip) to increase our factor of safety there.  The spar layering design is complete and is in the process of being added to our working wing assembly.  We have also decided what type of hinge we will use and how it will be attached to our back spar. 

*********************************************************************************

December 1, 2009

The structures team continues to labor on the airframe design. The design is coming together quite well and is so far only a week or so behind schedule.  We hope to start laser-cutting parts within the next week or so!!

Concurrently, the wind tunnel team has been working on our wind tunnel model and test setup. We hope to have some real world data to back up our computer models and calculations. Within the next week we anticipate having a tangible wind tunnel model!

Check out our pictures for some images of this year's design! We will have some build pics up as soon as construction begins!


***********************************************************************
December 2, 2009

Propulsion and Avionics

Testing of the radio equipment and servos is currently in progress. The Stability and Control team is determining the amount of force needed to actuate the aircraft control surfaces in all flight regimes - our task will be to test each of our servos and determine if they will be able to provide the required torque, and how our avionics system will be coming together.

************************************************************************

December 18, 2009

We have spent the day getting parts laser cut for the plane! Everything is coming out great - the laser doesn't like our 1/4in ply backbone so we might have to hack away at it by hand later on, but the ribs and all other parts are coming out beautifully! Pics are up!

*************************************************************************

January 18. 2009

Over the winter break, the various groups within the design team came together and started building our final design aircraft as well as our test flight prototype. Construction is going well! Please take a look in my picture album for updated pictures of the plane. We have discovered a few issues with our model in terms of parts fit - also, we designed the ribs to be very thin and very light-weight. They would be able to handle the flight loads just fine, but we have been breaking them at an incredible rate just during construction and handling. A few minor changes will be made to our final competition aircraft design to accout for these issues. 

******************************************************************************

February 04, 2010

Propulsion and Avionics

We have completed the servo testing and began on the servo and prop testings to see which prop produced the most force.  With the rain we have received in the past few days, the weather has inabled us to do as many tests as we would have preferred to do.  Based on research and testing, we have a general idea of which servo to use for each function that will be carried out from the radio signal.

*******************************************************************************

February 20, 2010

It is finally starting to look like a plane!! Construction is almost entirely complete, although we are waiting to put the plane together (mount the booms, tail, and engine) until we can get it all covered. 

We started covering the wing - it's huge so it takes a good couple of hours to cover each side! We hope to have it fully covered within the next week or so. Hopefully we can get everything together for a test flight before spring break (March 15th)

*********************************************************************************

March 4, 2010

We finally finished covering the plane last night!! All of the controls are connected. We mounted the booms and tail in preparation for our scheduled test flight this weekend, but the booms seem to a bit weaker than we had anticipated. It looks like we are headed back to the drawing board, at least on the tail boom issue. The next few weeks are crunch time for us, so hopefully we can finish the plane, knock out a test flight, AND write our final technical report before the due dates!! Wish us luck!!

New pictures are up in our gallery!!
********************************************************************************
March 6. 2010

We haven't  been able to find a fix for our twin booms - the warping problem continues despite our efforts. We tried wiring braces and supports  to help reinforce the c-channel aluminum we used, but to no avail. Today we are replacing the c-channels with box beams. They should be a good bit more rigid but there will also be a weight penalty. Apart from the added weight, we fear that the CG of the aircraft will be shifted a good bit aft of what we had anticipated which would call for MORE weights to be added just to balance it out. Another option we are exploring is scrapping the aluminum booms altogether and building more traditional balsa-and-ply booms. It's crunch time!!

UPDATE: twin box beams to directly replace our C-channels on the tail came out to be far too heavy even with lightening holes cut. We are changing the design to incorporate a single box beam as the boom - so far the fix is working but we have had to take a few large steps back in order to sufficiently modify the boom mounting framework.

UPDATE 2: The mounting framework has been completely re-worked and the boom is mounted - the problem now is that our CG is too far back on the plane. We have a few tricks up our sleeves with some lightening holes and electronics placement... we'll let you know how it goes!

*****************************************************************************

March 10, 2010

Our flight test prototype is ready to go up! We will attempt our first flight test tomorrow, assuming the weather cooperates! Wish us luck!

******************************************************************************

March 11, 2010

We conducted our first test flight today and it was a success!! Pictures are up as well. Our CG was a bit off and made for an interesting first flight. Also, our control deflections needed some adjustments and the engine wasn't putting out the power we are used to. After a few quick adjustments, the second flight was much more controlled and exciting! We are looking at possibly re-designing our tail section for the competition aircraft to avoid using complicated bell-cranks and possibly saving on all-up flying weight. 

********************************************************************************

April 16th, 2010

Our second aircraft is almost complete! We have been able to iron out some of the troubles in the first plane and have devised a new, lighter tail section. It has yet to be flight tested due to a variety of problems we have been having with the weather, school, etc. We anticipate putting the final touches on both planes and having them both flight-ready at the competition! It is only about 10 days away so things are starting to hit the fan, but we are all extremely excited about the opportunity!

*********************************************************************************
April 27th, 2010

It seems like we have finally figured out the rest of the trouble spots on our aircraft! we were hoping to get another test flight in last weekend but unfortunately we had an elevator control problem that kept us grounded. For now, we're putting the final touches on our two competition aircraft and getting ready for the competition in Ft. Worth starting Friday the 30th! With any luck, the weather forecast won't come true - currently it looks like we'll be expecting scattered thunder storms all weekend. 

As they say, this is Texas! Blink and the weather changes! :)