Drone Physics Lesson 9

Will It Fly?

I can learn about kites and gliders and how these models can help in understanding the concept of flight.

​It Is Sunny.

Cherokee: A-ga-li-ha

Syllabary: ᎠᎦᎵᎭ

it's warm
u-ga-na-wa
ᎤᎦᎾᏩ 

It Is Raining.

Cherokee: A-ga-sga

Syllabary: ᎠᎦᏍᎦ

It Is Cold.

Cherokee: U-yv-tsa

Syllabary: ᎤᏴᏣ

Vocabulary

balsa: Light weight wood that is easily manipulated in making airplanes.

control variable: A standard that an experimental model is measured against.

design: A plan, sketch or outline made to serve as a guide or pattern.

distance: The amount of space between two things, objects or points.

glider: An aircraft similar to an airplane but without an engine.

kite: A light frame covered usually with paper or cloth, with a stabilizing tail, and designed to be flown in the air at the end of a long string.

Engineering Connection

Orville and Wilbur Wright were inventors who might be considered early aeronautical engineers. When they designed their first airplane, they built balsa models and kites to test how well it would fly. Modern engineers do the same thing when designing airplanes. Engineers today also use computers to test aspects of their designs before they build the real thing. Doing this less expensive, easier and quicker since they can learn from their failures while using the small-size, inexpensive models instead of making costly mistakes using full-size prototype airplanes.

Open Ended

What are diffrent kinds of aircraft we have talked about up to this point?

Open Ended

How many of you have flown a kite before?

What are the parts of the kite?

Kites

Engineers can learn a lot about the flight patterns of a glider by first building a kite model of the glider. They can hold it by hand (if it is small enough to control) and observe its flight patterns when they vary any number of components: the wing shape and size, its position on the kite's body, the structure of the entire body of the kite, and various tail assemblies.

Early experimenters

Early experimenters of flight built kites that resembled the glider or powered vehicle that s/he hoped to build later. Some of these kites were full-sized, resembling the glider or airplane they intended to fly later but using less-expensive materials. Sometimes experimenters placed weights on the kite to observe how specific weight being carried would change the flight pattern. The Wright Brothers were among those who built several kites of increasingly larger size before they built their gliders and powered aircraft. They used the kites and model gliders to experiment with wing warping and how much weight a kite or glider could carry before failing.

Early experimenters

Not all engineering is well thought out the first time around. Sometimes, the best designs are accidental and emerge through a lot of experimentation. You are going to have an opportunity to use all of the information you have learned about aircraft flight to design and then redesign a balsa glider to increase its flight time and distance with the associated activity Balsa Glider Competition.

Match

Match the following

• it's warm

• It Is Sunny

• It Is Raining

• It Is Cold

u-ga-na-wa

A-ga-li-ha

A-ga-sga

U-yv-tsa

• u-ga-na-wa

• A-ga-li-ha

• A-ga-sga

• U-yv-tsa

Match

Match the following

• balsa

• design

• distance

• glider

• kite

Light weight wood

A plan, sketch or outline

space between two things

similar to an airplane

light frame covered usually with paper

• Light weight wood

• A plan, sketch or outline

• space between two things

• similar to an airplane

• light frame covered usually with paper

Open Ended

What can you learn from flying a kite?

Open Ended

What can you learn from building a glider?