{"id":9708,"date":"2025-05-19T12:13:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T16:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?p=9708"},"modified":"2025-05-19T12:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T16:13:19","slug":"flight-simulation-for-aeronautical-engineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2025\/05\/19\/flight-simulation-for-aeronautical-engineering\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight Simulation for Aeronautical Engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Fabricate an airfoil and test it in the college wind tunnel. Plot data. Program our flight sim to use the data from your custom wing. Test fly your experimental airplane. That\u2019s the exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"9710\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?attachment_id=9710\" class=\"wp-image-9710\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-1-80x60.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"9711\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?attachment_id=9711\" class=\"wp-image-9711\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/wings-2-80x60.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"815\" height=\"557\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"9712\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve.png\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?attachment_id=9712\" class=\"wp-image-9712\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve.png 815w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve-768x525.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/X-Plane-Curve-88x60.png 88w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 815px) 100vw, 815px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"802\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve-1024x802.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"9709\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve.png\" data-link=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?attachment_id=9709\" class=\"wp-image-9709\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve-1024x802.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve-300x235.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve-768x602.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve-77x60.png 77w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve.png 1026w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is all in addition to reading the definitive text on introductory aerodynamics, learning circulation theory, and working through numerous problem sets that describe the Kutta-Joukowski theorem, Prandtl\u2019s lifting line theory, \u201cBernoullian\u201d lift, and \u201cNewtonian\u201d lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leading up to the final exercise described above, students also followed a set of tutorials in Microsoft Flight Simulator to learn basic airplane control. This encouraged an intellectual approach to air vehicles beyond their wings. Students not only learned how to do aerodynamic calculations and wind tunnel research, but also how to think about the balance of forces across an entire airplane: forces that are required to obtain both stability and maneuverability in flight. They learned to think about torque exerted by an airplane\u2019s ailerons, elevator, and rudder\u2026 moments that affect roll, pitch, and yaw\u2026 the importance of an airplane\u2019s center of gravity relative to a wing\u2019s center of lift\u2026 in short,\u00a0<em>flight dynamics<\/em>\u00a0in addition to\u00a0<em>aerodynamics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Says Professor Carr Everbach, \u201cMy Aerodynamics course would not be nearly as rich without the Flight Simulator and Jeremy Polk\u2019s ability to guide students in not only using it, but customizing it to fly a Cessna with their own wing design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Says the author: Thanks, Carr. My semester would not have been nearly as rich without your Aerodynamics course. I hope the students enjoyed themselves as much as I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fabricate an airfoil and test it in the college wind tunnel. Plot data. Program our flight sim to use the data from your custom wing. Test fly your experimental airplane. That\u2019s the exercise. This is all in addition to reading &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2025\/05\/19\/flight-simulation-for-aeronautical-engineering\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Flight Simulation for Aeronautical Engineering<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":9709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[90],"class_list":{"0":"post-9708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-academic-technology","8":"tag-featured","10":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/matlab-curve.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph2nPL-2wA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9716,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708\/revisions\/9716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}