Hello, hello! Welcome back to week five of my internship.
The delta shaped “Popwing” that we would replicate.
We finally did it. On Thursday we went to the airfield and tested our inflatable wing. But before we talk about that, let’s take it back a bit. The reason we had to wait until Thursday was because we needed clearance to be able to fly at said airfield. So in the meantime we preoccupied ourselves with another project. Before he left, Dr. Jacob handed us the task of creating an inflatable delta shaped sUAS (small unmanned aerial system). This is what we were attempting to replicate. We’re currently in the process of making it, but so far we have made parallelogram shaped inflatable wings and are moving on to make the middle section which holds them together. The rate at which we make wings now is amazingly fast compared to when we started.
A Sectional Aeronautical Chart that I used quite often to study.
While the group was developing that, I was also studying for a FAA Part 107 test. On Monday, I signed up for the exam and I would take it on Thursday. It wasn’t the best idea to sign up for an exam I knew nothing about, but Marc Hartman – the USRI’s Unmanned System Operations guy – offered a class on Wednesday that would help everyone on their exam. I took the class and on my own time I studied practice exams I found online. I needed a 70% to pass and I scored a 78%! Not bad for 2 days of cram studying. Since I passed, I’ll be receiving my commercial pilots license for small unmanned aerial systems. I can now legally get paid to take pictures using a drone. All I need now is a drone and someone who wants to pay me… maybe later on.
Our final masterpiece. Ailerons are typically placed on the trailing edge of the wing for lateral balance/control.
And finally, Thursday came around. In the morning I took my exam and when I got back, we went straight to the airfield. It’s a shame I can’t upload videos here, but it was fun getting to see the thing we worked so hard for to fly… even if it was for a total of 28 seconds. Our wing generated lift which was great but it did crash pretty quickly. This was due to various factors. One major factor was our wing didn’t have ailerons attached to it to help control the fixed wing plane itself. What these ailerons do is manipulate the air by lifting or pulling down on the trailing edge to be able to make turns and keep control horizontally. With a perfect wing though, it is possible to control with just the tail using the rudder and elevator, but our wing and the wind was too unstable to keep control so it would veer to the left. Although we didn’t get an amazing flying time, we did learn something that day. Inflatable wings can sure withstand a head on impact. On Friday we just continued to work on the delta wing.
Today, for my final weekend here in Stillwater, my coworkers and I are going to the movie theatre to watch Spider-Man: Far From Home. It’s incredible how fast everything went by. I can still remember my first day here going to Lake Carl Blackwell. It was so hot that day. I’m going to miss all my coworkers and all the people I got to meet here.
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