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Intro to Aeronautical Engineering

Take part in a fun and educational class to learn what goes into airplane design. Students learn calculations that show how the math we learn gets used in real life.

Taught by
Norm Stein, M.E.

Read the Recent Article About Norm Stein here


New Summer Classes

for Middle School Age & Up

3 Sessions Offered - All Different!

June 10 - 14, 11am-1pm

June 24 - 28, 11am-1pm

August 5 - 9, 11am-1pm


Located in Palo Alto, CA


Summer Class Information

There are 3 one-week courses planned for the Summer. Each week-long course differs from the other two in its detail content, however, they are each based on flight testing a simulated Langley glider on our zip-line facility.
 
Now here we need to explain  three important things:
 
1. Not everyone will be a test pilot. There will be lots of engineering test duties on the ground. This is very much like flight testing real, free flying aircraft. For example, the test director may never get off the ground - and everyone will have a turn at being the test director.
 
2. Our Langley glider is almost 3/4 the size of the real thing, which was powered by an engine and had a much greater wing span. The history of Prof. Langley's Aerodrome will be summarized. We will be most concerned with the flight controllability of the glider, which is done by weight shifting as with the real thing.
 
3. The glider has had a professional design process as with the airliners you have been flying in. It has been test flown extensively and is safe. Although flight times are only about 10 seconds long, the glider has a good factor of safety as required by the FAA (1.5 times limit load).
 
The three individual one-week courses may be taken individually or in series by students with very little repetition of material. Those who stick with the whole three-week process will be given the opportunity to be lead engineers.
 
Finally, we need to point out that we are a professional engineering organization and do math and physics calculating (application oriented). All students will need to bring notebooks for the engineering portion of the class, dress properly, and bring a few articles which will be listed on the registration form.

To register, please click here to send us an Email

See What Students Did During Our Fall 2012 Session

The Class going on this Fall was visualized and planned from the very start of our program almost 2 years ago.

We saw a way of doing it. There were two very important things we taught the Fall session:

A. How a wind tunnel works. (It is more than blowing air through a tunnel.)

B. How you get airplane design data by using a wind tunnel and test models.

There are underlying objectives, however, which were also very important; TEAMWORK is highly necessary during any kind of engineering test. We have seen this in previous classes where we have used our propeller testing apparatus, and also when we have used our tension testing machine. The way our class members have worked together with great enthusiasm has been quite thrilling.

An associated activity was solving a few aerodynamic equations which led to design decisions regarding the performance of the model being tested.

The Fall 2012 Class Visits Wind Tunnels at NASA

Hear from the instructor about The Fall 2012 Class