Understanding Airplanes - A mini-degree in aeronautical engineering. No math, no homework, no tests

Register for the online course
The online course is not available yet, but it will be very soon! The videos are being recorded and uploaded to Udemy. As soon as the course is available on Udemy, I will add a link right here. If you would like to be alerted as soon as that happens, then simply shoot me an email.
For the syllabus, see below.

Slides and Notes
All the slides from all my courses and presentations can be downloaded from the links below.
The "full-length" version of my Understanding Airplanes course is ten hours long. You can download the slides from the following link:
UnderstandingAirplanes.com/Understanding-Airplanes-slides.pdf
Warning: Huge PDF, about 100 megs (340 slides). It contains explanatory notes for each slide (every other slide shows the notes for the previous slide). All the videos that I show in class are embedded in these PDFs. (Note: Videos may not play properly unless Adobe software is used to view the slides. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free).
The most popular version of Understanding Airplanes is the eight-hour course, which I call the "shorter version". Most of my students have been Boeing folks who took the "shorter version" as a one-day event. Because they work on modern jets, I removed the lecture about aviation history, the lecture about piston engines, and little bits here and there about things like seaplanes and thrust vectoring. Below is a link to the slides for the eight-hour course. This PDF is about 70 megs for 275 slides.
UnderstandingAirplanes.com/Understanding-Airplanes---shorter-version.pdf

My Presentations: Videos and Slides (a.k.a. Free Samples)
Years ago, the original version of my course was sixteen hours long. It was basically the aforementioned ten-hour course, plus some non-mainstream "special topics". I have spun off most of these special topics into their own stand-alone presentations, which I have given at places like the Historic Flight Foundation and EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. The slides can be downloaded from the links below. I also include links to videos of myself giving these talks, when available. (I expect to record and post more videos, as I give these talks again in the future).
• Airplane Design for Non-Engineers a.k.a. Airplane Design FAQ; basically a one-hour "hits and highlights" of Understanding Airplanes: Slides, Video.
• Stealth Airplane Design: Slides, Video.
• The Physics of Aerobatics, i.e. how to predict the aerobatic capabilities of an airplane: Slides, Paper, Video.
• 3D Printing in the Aerospace Industry; Past, Present, and Future: Slides, Video.
• Currently in the works: Aviation History. (The slides are at the start of the aforementioned Understanding Airplanes "full-length" slides PDF). Video coming soon!
• "Miscellaneous". These are from the original, 16-hour version of Understanding Airplanes and have not yet been given as stand-alone presentations. I do plan to video-record myself talking through these slides after the remainder of my content is added to Udemy. Topics are: VTOL technologies, aviation safety statistics, the latest innovations in aeronautical technologies, and record-breaking airplanes: Slides. (The slides contain thorough self-explanatory notes, so the information should be clear despite the current lack of video).

Syllabus
1: Lift (Wings)
- How wings work
- Multiple ways to think about (i.e. to model) the mechanisms behind lift generation: Bernoulli, Euler-N, Coanda, Newton's 3rd Law
- Dynamic pressure and the relationship between air density (temperature and altitude), airspeed, and aerodynamic forces. Pitot tubes and indicated airspeed.
- Understanding the stall; when and why it happens, how to delay and manage it. The CL-versus-alpha curve.
- High-lift devices (flaps, slats, Krueger flaps, slotted flaps, flaperons), slots, vortex generators, VG strakes, vortilons
2: Drag
- The four types of drag and the various airplane design practices and features used to minimize them:
- Viscous drag and boundary layers; Laminar Flow Control,
- Pressure drag and separation; VGs, golf-ball dimples, teardropping as function of Reynolds Number
- Induced drag and wingtip vortices; Aspect ratio, elliptical lift distribution, winglets and raked wingtips
- Wave drag and the ''sound barrier''; thin swept wings, supercritical airfoils, gradual changes in cross section
- Will we have supersonic transports again someday?
3: Thrust (Engines)
- The different kinds of aero engines and their components
- Optimizing engines for efficiency
- Piston engines, the four-stroke cycle (Otto cycle), Carburetors, turbochargers
- In-line, radial, rotary, and horizontally-opposed (boxer) piston engines
- Jet engines: Inlet, compressor, combustor, turbine, nozzle (Brayton cycle)
- Higher compression means higher efficiency but also higher temperatures, heavier engines, and slower max speeds. Where is the "sweet spot"?
- Turbofans (wider engine ➯ higher efficiency), thrust reversers
- Afterburners, thrust vectoring
- Non-mainstream engines: Pros and cons of two-stroke pistons, ramjets, pulsejets, electric and solar airplanes, hydrogen fuel cells, rockets-powered aircraft, human-powered aircraft
4: Weight (Structures)
- Airplane loads: Pressurization, bending from lift & weight
- Materials technologies and selection: steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, honeycomb
- How to select the optimal material to resist tension with the lightest weight. Other criteria: costs, temperatures, corrosion...
- Selecting the optimal shape to resist bending with the least material: The key for stiffness is "height" (depth, thickness).
- Biplanes, external supports, and trusses
- A tour of modern airplane structures: Frames, longerons, stringers, ribs, spars, skins, bulkheads... and the building block of airplane structure, the stiffened panel
- The future of composites/laminates
- How structural fatigue & damage tolerance determines maintenance and when each airplane should be retired
- How flutter (aeroelasticity and resonant frequencies) determines the max safe speed
5: Balance & Stability
- Balance: Relationships between the forces from the wing and tail fins relative to the location of the Center of Gravity
- Pitch stability, decalage rule: Why the horizontal tail fins must be at lower angle of incidence than the wings
- How the above factors determine the size of the tail fins
- Advantages & disadvantages of canards and of flying wings / blended wing bodies / tail-less designs
- How the vertical tail fins provide yaw stability
- How wing dihedral causes roll stability
6A: Controls & Turns
- What all the control surfaces are and what they do: Ailerons, elevator, rudder, spoilers, flaperons, elevons...
- How the total lift force during a coordinated banked turn is split between a vertical component (1G) and a horizontal component (centripetal acceleration)
6B: Performance: Takeoff & Landing, Climb, Engine-Out
- How required engine thrust is determined by the required capabilities for takeoff & climb in case of an engine failure
- How to determine the required runway length that will prevent an over-run even in case of an engine failure
- How the rudder size is determined by the need to overcome thrust asymmetry at slow speeds in case of an engine failure
- Landing gear design, sizing, and location
7A: Performance: Cruise Speed, Altitude, Top Speed, Gs
- The Power Curve: The lowest-drag speed will be the best-glide and fastest-climb and longest-endurance speed, the speed closest to the lower right corner of the curve gives the best range (most miles per gallon)
- How cruise altitude is selected, why it goes up during a flight
- The causes of the limitations around the speed-altitude flight envelope: VNE/MMO, stall, max power
- How high can a given airplane fly? How fast?
- The limitations around the V-G (V-N) diagram: stall, VNE / MMO, structural failure. How tight can a given airplane turn?
7B: Design & Sizing: Payload, Range, the Market, Cost
- How the useful load can be made up of various combinations of payload and fuel
- Payload-range diagrams, developing derivatives based on market needs, how to compare competing airplane models
- How to design an airplane that sells. How to balance fuel efficiency with development & manufacturing costs to minimize the overall lifetime cost of an airplane
Bonus Activity (for in-person sessions only): Build and Test-Fly a Glider!
- Design and build wings that maximize lift and minimize drag
- Design and build tail fins, adjusting their size and angle so as to provide balanced, stable flight
- Quantify the ''efficiency'' (Lift to Drag ratio) of your glider by launching it and measuring its range
- Improve the efficiency by modifying draggy features

Copyright 2022 Ⓒ Bernardo Malfitano



	Register for the online course The online course is not available yet, but it will be very soon! The videos are being recorded and uploaded to Udemy. As soon as the course is available on Udemy, I will add a link right here. If you would like to be alerted as soon as that happens, then simply shoot me an email. For the syllabus, see below. Slides and Notes All the slides from all my courses and presentations can be downloaded from the links below. The "full-length" version of my Understanding Airplanes course is ten hours long. You can download the slides from the following link: UnderstandingAirplanes.com/Understanding-Airplanes-slides.pdf Warning: Huge PDF, about 100 megs (340 slides). It contains explanatory notes for each slide (every other slide shows the notes for the previous slide). All the videos that I show in class are embedded in these PDFs. (Note: Videos may not play properly unless Adobe software is used to view the slides. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free). The most popular version of Understanding Airplanes is the eight-hour course, which I call the "shorter version". Most of my students have been Boeing folks who took the "shorter version" as a one-day event. Because they work on modern jets, I removed the lecture about aviation history, the lecture about piston engines, and little bits here and there about things like seaplanes and thrust vectoring. Below is a link to the slides for the eight-hour course. This PDF is about 70 megs for 275 slides. UnderstandingAirplanes.com/Understanding-Airplanes---shorter-version.pdf My Presentations: Videos and Slides (a.k.a. Free Samples) Years ago, the original version of my course was sixteen hours long. It was basically the aforementioned ten-hour course, plus some non-mainstream "special topics". I have spun off most of these special topics into their own stand-alone presentations, which I have given at places like the Historic Flight Foundation and EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. The slides can be downloaded from the links below. I also include links to videos of myself giving these talks, when available. (I expect to record and post more videos, as I give these talks again in the future). • Airplane Design for Non-Engineers a.k.a. Airplane Design FAQ; basically a one-hour "hits and highlights" of Understanding Airplanes: Slides, Video. • Stealth Airplane Design: Slides, Video. • The Physics of Aerobatics, i.e. how to predict the aerobatic capabilities of an airplane: Slides, Paper, Video. • 3D Printing in the Aerospace Industry; Past, Present, and Future: Slides, Video. • Currently in the works: Aviation History. (The slides are at the start of the aforementioned Understanding Airplanes "full-length" slides PDF). Video coming soon! • "Miscellaneous". These are from the original, 16-hour version of Understanding Airplanes and have not yet been given as stand-alone presentations. I do plan to video-record myself talking through these slides after the remainder of my content is added to Udemy. Topics are: VTOL technologies, aviation safety statistics, the latest innovations in aeronautical technologies, and record-breaking airplanes: Slides. (The slides contain thorough self-explanatory notes, so the information should be clear despite the current lack of video). Syllabus 1: Lift (Wings) - How wings work - Multiple ways to think about (i.e. to model) the mechanisms behind lift generation: Bernoulli, Euler-N, Coanda, Newton's 3rd Law - Dynamic pressure and the relationship between air density (temperature and altitude), airspeed, and aerodynamic forces. Pitot tubes and indicated airspeed. - Understanding the stall; when and why it happens, how to delay and manage it. The CL-versus-alpha curve. - High-lift devices (flaps, slats, Krueger flaps, slotted flaps, flaperons), slots, vortex generators, VG strakes, vortilons 2: Drag - The four types of drag and the various airplane design practices and features used to minimize them: - Viscous drag and boundary layers; Laminar Flow Control, - Pressure drag and separation; VGs, golf-ball dimples, teardropping as function of Reynolds Number - Induced drag and wingtip vortices; Aspect ratio, elliptical lift distribution, winglets and raked wingtips - Wave drag and the ''sound barrier''; thin swept wings, supercritical airfoils, gradual changes in cross section - Will we have supersonic transports again someday? 3: Thrust (Engines) - The different kinds of aero engines and their components - Optimizing engines for efficiency - Piston engines, the four-stroke cycle (Otto cycle), Carburetors, turbochargers - In-line, radial, rotary, and horizontally-opposed (boxer) piston engines - Jet engines: Inlet, compressor, combustor, turbine, nozzle (Brayton cycle) - Higher compression means higher efficiency but also higher temperatures, heavier engines, and slower max speeds. Where is the "sweet spot"? - Turbofans (wider engine ➯ higher efficiency), thrust reversers - Afterburners, thrust vectoring - Non-mainstream engines: Pros and cons of two-stroke pistons, ramjets, pulsejets, electric and solar airplanes, hydrogen fuel cells, rockets-powered aircraft, human-powered aircraft 4: Weight (Structures) - Airplane loads: Pressurization, bending from lift & weight - Materials technologies and selection: steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, honeycomb - How to select the optimal material to resist tension with the lightest weight. Other criteria: costs, temperatures, corrosion... - Selecting the optimal shape to resist bending with the least material: The key for stiffness is "height" (depth, thickness). - Biplanes, external supports, and trusses - A tour of modern airplane structures: Frames, longerons, stringers, ribs, spars, skins, bulkheads... and the building block of airplane structure, the stiffened panel - The future of composites/laminates - How structural fatigue & damage tolerance determines maintenance and when each airplane should be retired - How flutter (aeroelasticity and resonant frequencies) determines the max safe speed 5: Balance & Stability - Balance: Relationships between the forces from the wing and tail fins relative to the location of the Center of Gravity - Pitch stability, decalage rule: Why the horizontal tail fins must be at lower angle of incidence than the wings - How the above factors determine the size of the tail fins - Advantages & disadvantages of canards and of flying wings / blended wing bodies / tail-less designs - How the vertical tail fins provide yaw stability - How wing dihedral causes roll stability 6A: Controls & Turns - What all the control surfaces are and what they do: Ailerons, elevator, rudder, spoilers, flaperons, elevons... - How the total lift force during a coordinated banked turn is split between a vertical component (1G) and a horizontal component (centripetal acceleration) 6B: Performance: Takeoff & Landing, Climb, Engine-Out - How required engine thrust is determined by the required capabilities for takeoff & climb in case of an engine failure - How to determine the required runway length that will prevent an over-run even in case of an engine failure - How the rudder size is determined by the need to overcome thrust asymmetry at slow speeds in case of an engine failure - Landing gear design, sizing, and location 7A: Performance: Cruise Speed, Altitude, Top Speed, Gs - The Power Curve: The lowest-drag speed will be the best-glide and fastest-climb and longest-endurance speed, the speed closest to the lower right corner of the curve gives the best range (most miles per gallon) - How cruise altitude is selected, why it goes up during a flight - The causes of the limitations around the speed-altitude flight envelope: VNE/MMO, stall, max power - How high can a given airplane fly? How fast? - The limitations around the V-G (V-N) diagram: stall, VNE / MMO, structural failure. How tight can a given airplane turn? 7B: Design & Sizing: Payload, Range, the Market, Cost - How the useful load can be made up of various combinations of payload and fuel - Payload-range diagrams, developing derivatives based on market needs, how to compare competing airplane models - How to design an airplane that sells. How to balance fuel efficiency with development & manufacturing costs to minimize the overall lifetime cost of an airplane Bonus Activity (for in-person sessions only): Build and Test-Fly a Glider! - Design and build wings that maximize lift and minimize drag - Design and build tail fins, adjusting their size and angle so as to provide balanced, stable flight - Quantify the ''efficiency'' (Lift to Drag ratio) of your glider by launching it and measuring its range - Improve the efficiency by modifying draggy features
	Copyright 2022 Ⓒ Bernardo Malfitano