Aero Talk Series by AeroSoc: Designing Different Aircrafts
By Arjun Raj
A discussion on preliminaries in Designing Different Aircrafts was held on 11th September by the Aerospace Society of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra under the counsel of Dr. Priyank Kumar, Professor in charge of Aerospace Society. The elocutionist of the event was S.K. Karthick (M.E., Ph.D. and A.RAeS). He is a scientific researcher in the field of Aerodynamics. His areas of research interest broadly include high-speed flows, high-speed imaging, image processing, noise reduction, supersonic gaseous mixing and advanced optical flow diagnostics.
There were more than 50 attendees in the webinar consisting of students of PhD, undergraduate and postgraduate from different departments such as Space engineering and rocketry, Mechanical, Production, Chemical, etc. The discussion started with 4 wheelers as it was easier for us to understand why/how to select 4 wheelers based on Job intended, Power, Fuel Consumption and minimum turning radius, thereby he went on the topic of how we select our aircrafts so as to create a correlation between them. He talked about the vital parameters such as Mission profile, Thrust to weight Ratio, Lift to drag ratio, wing loading etc. and went on to describe each of the parameters in the following discussion and even compared different aircrafts and birds to give us a clear understanding and importance of these parameters based on the requirements i.e. T/W ratio helps in climbing flights so for Space Shuttle the T/W ratio is higher compared to Airbus A380.
He even gave us an example to explain the importance of these parameters by the infamous landing and take-off of B747 Saudi Airlines in which the pilot had mistakenly landed the flight at the Indian Air Force runway instead of Chennai International Airport. The runway of this airport was smaller compared to the runway required by the jumbo jet so the wing loading (changes in wing loading affect take-off distance) had to be lowered to maintain the length of the runway, which was done by removing extra weight from the flight.
The discussion was concluded by clearing the doubts of the students which included future careers in the aerospace industry. He motivated us saying that the aerospace industry is not just limited to aeronautics and aerodynamics, but in fact is an interdisciplinary industry which includes engineering branches like mechanical, chemical, electronics, electrical; and anyone can contribute while working on their respective fields. The meeting was brought to an end with a vote of thanks from Ruchi Ruchika (Vice President of Aerospace Society) on behalf of Aerospace Society and its members. Next month, we will be coming up with another webinar on a new topic.
