AIAA Update

Well the AIAA didn’t go to the plane competition this year, this was due to a combination of the fact that we basically ran out of time, we couldn’t fund the transportation costs to get to Texas, and the competition was in the middle of our exams. Regardless of this, we decided to proceed with the construction of the plane; the purpose of this was for the club members to gain construction experience, and so that we could test the design to see what we would want to change for next years plane. Additionally, we can use this year’s plane as a test platform for next years design changes. Besides overseeing all the construction for this years plane my project over the past couple of days has been how to mount the tail control surfaces to tail boom. On Friday I came up with a design, we discussed and then modified the design. Yesterday I cut out a test piece; from this piece I realized that I had to slightly modify my dimensions. So, I went back to the computer and fixed up my CAD drawing. Today I completed the part, it took me about three hours to do it, this included sketching the part on a piece of sheet metal then cutting it out with a band saw and finally with a hammer beating out the final piece. I don’t have a picture of it with me, so I will post the 2D expanded CAD view of the part.