Just Your Typical Delayed Flight

Thomas C -

Hey everyone, and welcome to last week’s blog!

I understand that this post comes a little late, but so much has happened in the last week that it was hard to keep up with everything. Firstly, I started to look for parts to build the assembly. Everything was going well until I started looking for electromagnets, which had to hold almost 1,200 pounds of force. That was when reality set in; all the electromagnets that had the required strength were too big for the assembly.

Frantically, I began to redesign the mechanism to accommodate such electromagnets. When I showed the new design to my on-site mentor, we both agreed that the new design would be tricky to manufacture because of its increased complexity. After realizing this, I began to work toward a new design. Below is the most recent design.

Design of one part of the free flight mechanism. Two of these will be built to hold a flight model in place before releasing it. The shaded squares with the letter M are electromagnets and the shaded squares with the letters PM are permanent magnets. At the beginning of the test, the piston (the object holding the permanent magnets) will be secured to the top plate via electromagnets. When released, two counteracting springs will force the piston down until it is secured to the bottom plate via electromagnets, pulling the model holder (the rectangle with a semicircle cut out) down into the plug (the rectangle above the two dark squares).

In other news, we decided to change the nozzle in the tunnel again, this time to have a test section Mach number of 4.

That is really all for last week, be sure to check tomorrows blog for this week’s update. The airplane of the week last week was the North American F-107A, enjoy reading about it below!

Until tomorrow,

-Thomas

North American F-107A > National Museum of the United States Air Force™ > Display

 

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    kyrsten_floyd
    Resilience definitely is the theme that comes to mind when I read your blogs! You never let the roadblocks get you down but instead find new ways to address those challenges. Well done. We visited the Air and Space Museum this week and I found myself seeing it through a different perspective. Usually I focus on the history but after participating as your mentor and reading your fascinating blogs, I found myself thinking about the development of flight, the stages of flight throughout history and the mechanics. You've taught me a lot through this project!
    March 28, 2025 at 2:09 pm - Reply

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