Flight test results & shop this week

[Nihar Gandhi]

Hey everyone,

We had a couple of flight tests with the foam wing Horseshoe today. While we were hoping to do metal-loaded tests today, the structural integrity of the foam wing and booms made it difficult to fly, even when unloaded. The motor mounts proved sufficient in-flight, but broke on each landing. We will redesign them this week and install them onto the new plane. Combined with the built-up wing and thicker booms, the new plane should be far more rigid, and perform as well as the original Horseshoe.

Shop sessions this week will be as follows:
Monday at 6pm
Wednesday at 4pm
Friday at 3pm

The seniors will be kept busy with the Final Design Report (FDR) for AE 443, so I would like the underclassmen to play a bigger role in construction of the aircraft, but everyone is still expected to attend the shop sessions. We need to be more efficient when working in the shop so that we can get the final aircraft completed by the goal of April 9th.

Thanks,
Nihar