AiS Challenge Team Interim

Team Number: 023

School Name: Bosque School

Area of Science: Engineering

Project Title: Avaition Safety

During the week of September 4-17 of this year, the F.A.A. Preliminary Accident and Incident site reported 18 fatal accidents of fixed wing aircraft. This is why we selected a project that will model an improved safety feature of an airplane. We feel that some of these accidents could have been prevented, and our model will demonstrate the effectiveness of the safety feature.

Problem Solution:

Our project is to model the flight of a fixed wing aircraft and illustrate how its impact when hitting the ground can be changed when assorted materials are attached to specific areas of the aircraft. We will assume that materials such as foam, springs and parachutes could be deployed if necessary, so that upon impact the aircraft would not explode. We will assume that the aircraft is still mostly intact. Some factors that are important are: the weight of the aircraft, the altitude from which the aircraft started the descent, the ground terrain on which the aircraft will hit, the speed at which the aircraft is traveling, the aerodynamics of the aircraft, the weather at the time of the descent, the time that the aircraft has been in flight, the experience of the pilot and co- pilot, and the angle of the descent. We will start by taking an aircraftat a predetermined altitude and testing the freefall of that aircraft and then expanding from there. We understand that all fixed wing aircraft accidents can not be stopped, but we believe that this is an important issue that must be investigated.

Progress to date:

Right now, we have a working model that simulates the velocity of an object (when it hits the ground) that has fallen from a certain height. It is very basic, but it has helped us learn more about programming and Java, and we are planning on refining our program. Also we hope to make it display the velocity after certain modifications made to our aircraft. These modifications include a parachute,and airbag among others. In addition we have started working on our Powerpoint presentation and our final report.

Expected Results:

As we learn more complex programming, we will advance in different areas and model more factors. We expect to add more velocities and convert the airplane from a falling object to an object with different dynamics and variables (such as the variables mentioned above in the problem solution).