Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics (original) (raw)
In the 21st century, airplanes are a normal part of everyday life. We see them fly over, or read about them, or see them on television. Most of us have traveled on an airplane, or we know someone who has. Do you ever wonder how airplanes fly? What causes the lift that gets the airplane off the runway? How does a pilot control the movement of the airplane? Why are the engines on an airliner different from the engines on a fighter plane? How does aerodynamics affect the flight of a model rocket or a kite? The information at this site is provided by the NASA GlennEducational Programs Office (EPO) to give you a better understanding of how aircraft work. Much of the material was originially developed for the Learning Technologies Project (LTP).
Each page at this site describes a single topic related to basic airplane aerodynamics, propulsion, rockets, or kites. At the top of each page is a slide that illustrates the topic. The slide is accompanied by a caption that explains what the slide is all about and goes into some detail about the physics and math related to the subject of the slide. There are links and references to other slides and sites where you can find additional information.
This site was prepared to provide background information on basic aerodynamics and propulsion for math and science teachers, students, and life-long learners. We have intentionally organized the BGA to mirror the unstructured nature of the world wide web. There are many pages here connected to one another through hyperlinks. You can then navigate through the links based on your own interest and inquiry. However, if you prefer a more structured approach, you can also take one of ourGuided Tours through the site. Each tour provides a sequence of pages dealing with some aspect of aerodynamics. Each section of the BGA has a local index so you are never more than two clicks away from any other page at the site.
For many of the web pages, activities are available for teachers to use in class. These activities were developed during teacher workshops including:
- Elementary and middle school teachers at two summer workshops sponsored by LTP in 1996 and 1997.
- Middle and secondary school teachers at four summer workshops cosponsored by the LTP and the Ohio Space Grant Consortium in 1998 and 1999.
- Pre-service middle and secondary school teachers from the University of Akron, Akron, Ohio, in 2000.
You can access the activities by clicking on buttons at the bottom of a web page. As an aid to teachers, we have organized the activities by grade level (K-6, 4-6, 6-8, 9-12, 11-12) using color-coded buttons. As a further teaching aid, you are encouraged to copy and download your own copy of any slide by using a right click and "Save As..". All of this information was developed in the public domain, and you can use the graphics in your own presentations.
Software in Schools
We would like to know if you are using the Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics, RocketModeler, FoilSim, EngineSim, Range Applet, or Baseball Applet, in your classroom. Follow the Link above and include your school name, e-mail address and which of the above you are using.
NOTICE --- The site has been developed to support Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Many of the pages contain mathematical equations which have been produced graphically and which are too long or complex to provide in an "ALT" tag. For these pages, we have retained the non-compliant graphic at the top of the page and have provided a compliant text version of the equations in the body of the page. In many cases, because of the use of Greek fonts in the graphics, the purely English text version of the equations is slightly different than the graphic version. The differences are noted in the text.
More Fun stuff...