Manufacturing Considerations
The designer must consider all three factors: Mission, Manufacturing and Marketing.
Choosing the Configuration
Most of our recent discussions on the process of designing an airplane were based on the assumption that the airplane has a generally conventional...
Design Innovation
A designer must make a large number of decisions in the process of designing an airplane. These range from top-level decisions, like the overall...
Variable Geometry Cooling System
The way to reduce or eliminate excess cooling drag in cruise is to use a variable-geometry cooling system that can change shape to control the amount of air flowing through the cowling.
Cooling Outlet Design
The design must focus on sufficiently cooling the engine while minimizing drag.
Cooling: Internal Flow
Cooling the engine and its accessories requires a continuous flow of air to come in from outside the airplane to absorb heat from the...
Cooling Inlets, Part 2
As we saw last month, an ideal cooling air inlet system should ingest air from the free stream and bring it to rest or...
Cooling Inlets
The cooling air inlet serves two functions: First, and most important, the inlet must ingest enough air to properly cool the engine and accessories...
Cooling
As we saw in last month’s edition of Wind Tunnel, only about one-third of the energy released by burning the fuel in an internal...
In Case You Missed It
Simplified One-Off Electronic Projects
As homebuilders, we are accustomed to doing a lot of preliminary and/or tooling work to build a couple of pieces for our aircraft. Tom Kuffel created an auxiliary fuel transfer pump controller for his GlaStar Sportsman for next to nothing, a real savings over the retail price of $300, and he describes how he did it.
Metal Magic: Cutting and Shaping Angle Aluminum
In another segment of KITPLANES' Metal Magic series, editor at large Paul Dye shows...