Capstone Airplane Design Project
The capstone airplane design courses constitute the final educational shaping experience that brings together elements of all that students learned during their undergraduate years. In these courses student learn how to design airplanes and how economics and societal needs combine with the fundamental aeronautical disciplines of aerodynamics, structures, propulsion and control to create integrated flying machines.
The courses lead students through all stages of the design process, from conceptual design paper studies, to experiments using models, and to construction, assembly and, finally, tests of complete final vehicles. Students create the organizational structure in which disciplinary groups interact and collaborate, and each student has to contribute to at least two of those disciplinary groups. Experimental work the students carry out includes wind tunnel tests, propulsion tests, structural tests, and systems tests.
Examples of UAVs designed, built, and tested by UW A&A students:
- electric hand-launched backpack UAVs for surveillance and communications
- Graphite-Epoxy trans-pacific 60lbs TOGW UAV
- a Kevlar high-maneuverability 12g pull-up/direct side force control box-wing UAV
- a modular dynamically-scaled SSBJs (supersonic business jets) UAV for low-speed handling qualities research of supersonic configurations.
We thank the following local industries for their involvement and support:
- Aeronautical Testing Service, Inc., from Arlington, WA, designers and builders of wind tunnel models and construction moulds and applied aerodynamics advisors.
- The Boeing Company, through the participation of its engineers as advisors and instructors, material support, and the contribution of design challenges to the classes.
