Airspace 2009 10

2009-10

Chandrayaan I - The Aftermath ThrustSSC Program SKYCAR

INTERNSHIP BLOGS STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMS LTA SYSTEMS

www.aero.iitb.ac.in/airspace

Alumni and Industrial relations Anirudh Rao anirudhr@gmail.com

Web Manager Gaurav Meena meenagaurav@iitb.ac.in

Logistics Manager Shriraj Khalane shriraj@iitb.ac.in

Design & Publicity Pradeep Shende prdp_iitb@iitb.ac.in

Event Managers Viren Timble viren_t2005@iitb.ac.in Prasad Sawant prasad_15_5@iitb.ac.in

Marketing & Media Abhishek Agarwal monty_abhishek@iitb.ac.in Mridul Joshi mridul_joshi@iitb.ac.in

General Secretary Ayanangshu Dey ayanangshu.dey@iitb.ac.in

TEAM ZEPHYR09

ZEPHYR 09

From the HOD’s desk Greetings to all From being an in-house newsletter 5 years ago to a full-fledged student magazine a couple of years ago, Airspace has indeed come a long way in spreading the enthusiasm for aerospace studies and knowledge across the country. This year, Airspace has taken its outreach to a higher level with international contributions from stalwarts involved in unique Aerospace projects like the ThrustSSC Program and the SkyCar. Airspace is also more structured now with dedicated sections on student activities and research, as well as newly introduced sections on news and popular aerospace, among others, to cater to a diaspora of readers across the aerospace fraternity. You shall discover them as you go through the magazine.

I am glad that students of our department are showing increasing interest in department cocurriculor activities, Airspace just being one of them. Zephyr 09, once again, was well attended by interested students from our campus as well as outside and it turned out to be quite a useful learning experience for everyone involved. The Student Satellite Project Pratham made a major breakthrough achieving an MoU with ISRO. The nanosatellite is progressing well on its way to the launch pad. Several workshops on software training and undergraduate research oppurtunities were organized as well in the department, and I can only hope such activities continue with the same zeal in the future.

I have only words of encouragement and appreciation for Team Airspace for putting in substantial effort in bringing out a more comprehensive edition of the magazine this year. At the same time, I encourage readers to participate more in such a forum by contributing articles on their research interests, activities in their colleges or even interesting projects and courses that instilled the spirit of aerospace and aviation in you.

On behalf of the faculty, students, staff and everybody else involved, I present you with Airspace 2009-2010.

P M Mujumdar

From the Editor’s desk Here!

I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this edition of Airspace as much as the editorial team of Airspace has in bringing this to you. The theme for this year’s Airspace is – The Lunar Race; man’s rekindled quest for lunar research again. This issue is dedicated to the hard work and commitment shown by our very own ISRO scientists and applauding their efforts made towards the Chandrayaan mission last year.

This edition has a lot more to offer from the previous editions. A dedicated section analyzing the latest developments and trends in the world of aviation namely the large number of aircraft accidents and the recession that adversely affected the airline industry has been covered in the news section. A popular aerospace section has also been introduced to showcase the latest innovations and trends in out-of-the-box aerospace technology. Airspace sees international participation too this year, exhibiting landmark projects in aviation through the SkyCar and the ThrustSSC program. The Student Section too has expanded into various domains exploring the world of internships, student exchange programs, outreach programs and much more.

This edition would not have been possible without the cooperation and assistance of Team AEA. For being such a small department and still having the enthusiasm to dream big is quite remarkable. A big thank you goes out to all my classmates who mentored, wrote articles (for free!) and constantly motivated me to work hard and bring out a far more elaborate issue.

Finally, I would also like to thank YOU readers in advance for reading this issue and contributing to this magazine in the future.

Signing off, Rajat Chakravarty

Contributors

Editing and Design Rajat Chakravarty rajatc@aero.iitb.ac.in Fourth Year Undergraduate Department of Aerospace Engineering IIT Bombay

Ankur Baranwal Anuj Kharat Arpit Maru Asgerali Masalawala Ashwath Subramanian Bharat Jakati Chaitanya Halbe Harishwar Subramanian Kartik Dalal

Naresh Ponnana Nek Sharan Nidhi Shanbhag Paul Moller Pratik Chaudhari Richard Noble Saptarishi Bandyopadhyay Shiva Sai Krishna Siddharth Shanbhag

News - an analysis of all that's happened in the world of Aerospace and Aviation this past year 1 3 6 8

Chandrayaan I - The Aftermath - Saptarishi Bandyopadhyay Aircraft Crash Investigations - Ankur Baranwal Recession and Impact on Low Cost Airlines - Arpit Maru International Astronomical Congress 2009 - A Review - Saptarishi Bandyopadhyay

11 Zephyr 2009 - the annual festival of the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay 15 Tete-a-tete with Naveed Hussain, VP of Engineering & Technology, Boeing India

International - inspirational stalwarts share their experiences of the skies less travelled 17 The ThrustSSC Program - Down The Ages - Richard Noble 20 The SkyCar - Dr. Paul Moller

Research@IITB - a closer look at novel research done at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay 24 Lighter Than Air (LTA) Systems - Harishwar Subramanian and Nidhi Shanbhag

Popular Aerospace - profound ideas through aerospace fundamentals today that'll shape tomorrow's designs 26 Busemann Biplane - Ashwath Subramanian 27 Microcombustors - Asgerali Masalawala

Students - exciting activities or promising opportunities shared by students 28 30 32 34 36

Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology - the first 2 years, Sandeep Vatti Udaan - A Student Empowerment Program - Harishwar Subramanian and Naresh Ponnana Student Exchange Programs - Kartik Dalal Internship Blogs - Nek Sharan, Pratik Chaudhari and Anuj Kharat IIT Kanpur Flight Lab - Chaitanya Halbe

37 Leisure - Bharat Jakati and Siddharth Shanbhag

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Chandrayaan 1 The aftermath We’re all aware that Chandrayaan-1 was a success. But what made it a success and what’s to look forward to in Chandrayaan-2, Saptarishi Bandyopadhyay takes a look…

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ixty-one years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru, in his historic “Awake to freedom” speech, envisioned a new India, a moment where the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finally finds utterance. On the morning of October 22 2008, India realized freedom of a different kind, yet echoing the same sentiments as was evident from the words of India's first prime minister.

Launching off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, was Chandrayan – 1, India's first unmanned lunar probe. The spacecraft was launched by a modified version of the PSLV, PSLV C11, which weighed 1,380 kilograms during lift off. The scientific payload had a total mass of 90 kilograms and contained five Indian instruments and six foreign instruments. The foreign agencies were not charged for their instruments. On November 12, 2008, after 20 days of orbital maneuvers, the Chandrayan – 1 spacecraft was successfully placed into a lunar orbit 100 kilometers above the lunar surface. On November 14, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) was released from the spacecraft at 20:06. For the next 30 minutes, the MIP sent back pictures and data of the lunar surface below, before crash landing onto the south pole, thereby making India the fourth country to land its flag on the moon.

The estimated cost for the project was Rs. 386 crore.

The biggest scientific achievement of Chandrayan – 1 has been the discovery of the widespread presence of water molecules in lunar soil. This was made possible by the MIP ejecting underground soil that could be analysed for the presence of lunar water ice. The finding has been hence corroborated by another independent NASA mission. This mission, apart from being a big boost to India's scientific program is also expected to change the way mankind will look at the moon. The presence of water molecules will make long-term human settlement a reality and would lead to colonization of the moon in the near future. Chandrayan, in its period of operation collected immense data in the period including over 70,000 high-resolution pictures of the lunar surface. The wealth of raw collected data made available to Indian researchers can lead us to more interesting insights in the near future.

The mission also gave us the first indigenous image of the entire earth, with India at the centre, something never seen before.

Saptarishi is a fifth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay.

He is and has been the Student InCharge of Pratham, I I T B o m b a y ’s S t u d e n t Satellite program for the past couple of years. His name has usually been synonymous with technology in the institute.

After suffering from several technical issues including failure of the star sensors and poor thermal shielding, the ground command finally lost the communication link with Chandrayan on August 29 2009 shortly after which, the ISRO officially declared the mission over. The ISRO Chairman, Dr. Madhavan Nair said that due to very high

Earth as seen by Chandrayaan 1

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radiation, power-supply units controlling both the computer systems on board failed, snapping the communication connectivity. Although intended to stay for two years around the moon, it died prematurely after 312 days of successful service. The exact cause of its death was attributed to incorrect thermal control which led to incorrect data estimation of heat around the surface of the moon.

This long suffering caused the orbit to increase to 200 kilometers to compensate for this additional heat from the surface of the moon. The mission was however, still considered a success as it managed to achieve 95 percent of the planned mission objectives.

Chandrayan is one of the milestones in the grand plan of ISRO which includes things like space recovery capsule, missions to Mars and finally manned missions to space. This mission has the distinction of being a one of its kind government undertaken mission which met all the time deadlines and stayed within the initial proposed budget. The credit for this goes to the Project director, Mr. M. Annadurai, who is also the youngest project director in the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC).

ISRO is also planning a second version of Chandrayaan named Chandrayaan – 2. The mission includes a lunar orbiter and also proposes to land two motorized rovers, one Russian and another Indian on the moon by 2013, launched by a GSLV launch vehicle. The rover is to be designed to move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do on-site chemical analysis and send the data to the mother-spacecraft, the lunar orbiter.

The success of Chandrayan – 1 has increased the Indian voice in the world space arena by many decibels. Dr. Madhavan Nair being recently elected as head of the International Academy Astronautics is a case in point.

The mission has also led to Antrix, the business unit of ISRO, to sign various lucrative deals with prospective countries in both, satellite fabrication and launch.

Furthermore, the Pratham Team, the student satellite team from IIT Bombay, was fortunate enough to see Chandrayan – 1 in its final stages from the ISAC clean rooms. This mission has also ignited young, enthusiastic and curious minds all over the country. Many student satellite efforts have begun and have received able support and mentorship from ISRO. It has created an atmosphere within the country to dream big and persevere to achieve them.

Chandrayaan Launch

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Investigations of Aircraft Fatalities Man has been crashing for far longer than he's been flying. The past year brought us a lot of disturbing news from the field of aviation. Ankur Baranwal delves deeper and tells us about the roots, innovations and preliminaries on how to survive a plane crash

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hat connects glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal, auto-pioneer Charles Rolls, explorer Roald Amundsen, and Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay? Add to this list, rock guitarists Randy Rhoads and Stevie Ray Vaughan, sportsmen Hansie Cronje and Colin McRae, politicians John F Kennedy Jr., Sanjay Gandhi, Madhavrao Scindia and Y S R Reddy, and you should surely know what I am getting at. Even though airline companies keep telling us how flying is the safest form of transport, most people find the thought of being in an air-crash very real and extremely frightening. In the two months of June and July 2009 there occurred three historic crashes (off-Brazil, in Iran and in Comoros) with a combined deathtoll of 550.

Some statistics Most airline companies would have you believe that flying is by far the safest form of transport, but that actually depends on how you present the data. If you look at the number of fatalities per kilometre of travel, airtransport comes out the best, followed closely by bus and later railway. If, however, you look at the number of fatalities per hour of travel, bus-travel is by far the safest, railways the second and air-travel a close third.

These differences are understandable, for air-journeys are generally the longest and yet quickest.

But do not lose heart just yet. In the period between 1983 and 2000, 568 aircraft crashes were recorded. Out of the 53000 people involved in these, 95% survived. Air-crashes aren't such a bad thing after all!

A few technical Innovations that directly followed crash incidents From installing (and advertising) modern safety measures to keeping no row 13 (e.g. Air France, KLM, AirTran...), airlines go to great lengths to make sure that passengers feel safe in their planes. In the field of aviation disaster often precedes learning, and some of the greatest innovations have been prompted by the worst crashes.

In the infamous Concorde crash of July 2000 (AF 4590 from Paris to NY), a strip of metal left behind by a previous take-off caused the tire of the Concorde to burst. Separate fragments of this tire severed an electrical connection and shattered the fueltank and the issuing sparks caused a fire ultimately leading to the death of 113 people.

Ankur Baranwal is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. He’s a great fan of the Mayday series on Aircraft Crash Investigations by National Geographic and an avid writer too.

Kevlar fittings in Fuel-tanks To prevent leaks and fires in the event of damage to the fuel-tank, they can now be fitted with what is one of the strongest substances known to man.

Runway overruns happen once every ten days in the US, and cause a quarter of all aviation deaths. Some airports just do not have enough room for Near-Zero Growth (NZG) tires These large aircraft to land. special tires developed by Michelin can more than withstand the radical Foam-crete – This unique mixture of stresses developed in aircraft wires foam and concrete, also called due to the extreme rotational speeds Engineering Material Arrest System and weight of the plane. In standard decelerates landing aircraft very tests, these tires perform so well that rapidly (60-feet is enough for a 10the abrasive used wears out before tonne plane), and does not catch fire. the tires fail. Even if they should fail Fuel-tank inerting system Another very logical representation is under certain circumstances, these Kapton – This polyimide film develin number of fatalities per journey, tires don't project debris which could oped by DuPont which eliminates the factors of speed damage other components. and distance. In this representation, bus is by far the safest transport while air-travel, overtaken by railway, car, marine and even walking, is 27 times worse than the bus!

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Structural failures occur when a component is no longer able to withstand the stresses imposed on it during operation. The modes through which failure may occur are Overload (exceeding permissible stresses), Fatigue (whereby cracking occurs under the influence of repeated or cyclic stresses below the nominal yield strength), Ductile or overload failure (which occurs when a material has been exposed to an applied load at a relatively slow rate to the breaking point of the material), Fast fracture or brittle failure (on rapid application of a load) and Corrosion (the chemical degradation of metals as a result of a reaction with the environment). The exact phenomenon that caused a certain failure can be easily ascertained in investigations, and it is found that the incidence of fatigue failure is by far the highest, which reflects the destructive nature of this failure mode, while corrosive attack is generally slower than fatigue, and usually more easily spotted and rectified during routine maintenance.

Mobile Automated Scanner (MAUS) – A revolutionary piece of equipment for nondestructive inspection of airframe structures, the MAUS incorporated ultrasonic pulse echo, ultrasonic resonance and eddy current scanning capabilities with scan speeds up to 400 sq.ft. per hour. It accurately detects fatigue cracks, corrosion and bonding failures, making it possible to predict virtually any kind of structural failure.

While the structural strength of fuselages has always been monitored and improved, a different cause of fatalities in crashes is the seats. The widely-used 1952 standard requires all seats to be able to withstand 9-g of static load, but when there occurred accidents where people died or were severely injured only because the seats flew off on impact, a better standard was needed.

16-g Seats – The stress suffered by seats in crashes is actually dynamic, so the new standard requires seats to be able to dynamically sustain 16-g acceleration. The new seats use legs which crumple and buckle to absorb energy.

Airport Surface Detection Equipment On-board GPS (EGPWS) Modified Doppler-radar system Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)

If you look at the graph of aviation deaths per year, you will see first an increase representing the growth in popularity of airtravel, and starting the 1970's, a decrease because of everimproving technologies and norms for air-safety.

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EASING THE PARANOIA - HOW TO SURVIVE A PLANE CRASH A survey suggests that being in an aircraft crash is the second greatest fear of people in the US (next only to public speaking).

The fear comes from the unnatural environment that is an airborne container—humans weren't exactly born to fly—and the fact that one has no control over it. The fear is worsened as crashes with heavy casualties or those involving celebrities always make the headlines, while thousands of glitch-free flights every day go unnoticed.

While one's life really is in the hands of someone else when one is aboard a plane, there are certain precautions that can help improve, albeit slightly, a passenger's chances of surviving a plane crash. Some of these are given in a safety booklet inside the plane.

A basic objective is leaving the plane as fast as possible in the event of an evacuation, which typically happens amidst great chaos and a lot of smoke--the "golden period" for escape lasts only up to about two minutes As soon as you enter the plane, be aware of all usable exits and mentally prepare an evacuation plan. Counting the number of seats from the exit to yours can be really handy if you must exit a smoke-filled plane and the guiding lights are not visible.

Know clearly the mechanism of your seatbelt, for failure to unfasten it quickly enough could lead to disaster. Amidst the general panic of a plane-crash, a surprisingly large fraction of people try to operate the belt like the one in their cars!

It is very important to brace oneself in case of imminent impact.

The aim is to bend one's upper torso down, and lock the limbs close together to prevent flail injuries. Hands can be clasped over the head resting against the seat in front, or if that is absent, tightly grabbing one's ankles with the hands is effective.

In case of a landing on water, remember to inflate your life-jacket immediately on exiting the plane. Any sooner and you might find yourself floating helplessly on top of the water that enters the aircraft. Too late and you may be unable to swim up to the surface because of leaking aviation fuel that floats above water.

Rather than a group trying to stick together, it's better if each person takes care of himself or herself and they meet at a predecided location after exit.

While they do tend to get repetitive and often ignored by veteran fliers, the safety booklet should be carefully read and any instructions given by flight attendants listened to, for these are specific to the aircraft and highly relevant.

A question commonly raised is whether some seats in a plane are safer than others. Some studies suggest that sitting in the rear is safer while others contradict this completely. One thing most people agree on is that sitting near an exit could improve your chances of evacuating quickly in case of a disaster.

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Economics Of

Low Cost Airlines

Inspite of the global meltdown and the recent fluctuations in fuel prices, LCAs still hold their own in dominating the commercial aviation sector. Arpit Maru tells us why In 2001 during an interview, Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary said, “The other airlines are asking how they can put up fares. We are asking how we could get rid of them.� Welcome to the world of Low Cost Airlines (LCAs).

Low Cost Airlines (or No-frill airlines as they are often termed) are the airlines which offer lower fa res a s co m p a re d to t h e traditional airlines. To accomplish this, they use a lower operating cost model, eliminating all the unnecessary services in order to compensate for the reduced fares.

These airlines should not be confused with the regional airlines, the ones those operate on a shorter route.

Even though the first LCA started its operations in India in 2003, the concept is as old as independent India. The first LCA, Pacific Southwest started its operations in the late 1940s in the United States, although the real credit for the success of this model can be attributed to the advent of the Aircraft Deregulation Act in 1978. One of the pioneers in the field of LCAs is the Southwest Airlines of the United States which began services in 1971 and has been profitable every year since 1973. This also helped in spreading this format to Europe, Ryanair and Easyjet being two to the few successful airlines. On 23rd August 2003, Captain Gopinath started Air Deccan, the first ever LCA of India with the vision of bringing air travel within the reach of the common man.

The success of Air Deccan has led to the beginning of a new era in the history of Indian aviation industry. Currently around half a dozen LCAs are operating successfully in a very competitive Indian market.

A very pertinent question when discussing LCAs is that how are they able to offer so ridiculously low fares and still be profitable, giving stiff competition to the traditional airlines? This can be understood by looking at their business model which is based on a very basic policy of cutting unnecessary costs wherever possible.

This is done by following various measures mentioned below: By reducing the In-flight services to the minimum, they are able to deduct these costs from the ticket prices. Some airlines in order to generate additional revenues charge for the services offered on board, thereby making it optional for the people who don't to want utilize these services.

They generally have a single type of aircraft in their fleet reducing the training and the maintenance costs. They also get the aircraft with minimum set of optional equipments further decreasing the procurement costs as well as the operating costs.

They operate from secondary airports and use less prominent time slots with faster turnaround time. Most of them operate on a point to point basis, moving away from the traditional hub and spoke model in order to save costs of baggage handling and avoid operational delays. They try to make as many flights possible in order to utilize the aircraft to the maximum. All these policy help reduce operational costs.

Online ticket booking system is followed in order to avoid extra costs paid to travel agents. Some of them also follow aggressive fuel hedging programs.

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Another reason for LCAs profitability is the additional demand in air traffic stimulated by them. Since LCA operate on almost half the fare offered by the traditional airlines, they are also able to compete with other transport mediums. Air travel was always faster but now it has become quite economical also. Due to the presence of high demand factor, Low Cost Airlines are able to operate on high capacity.

Low cost carriers, though a new concept in India, have long been accused in the West of "cutting corners on safety as well as s a n d w i c h e s �. A l t h o u g h t h e s e measures help in cutting costs not every airline follows all of them.

Charging for services (food, drinks etc) which other airlines offer for free might not go well with the passengers damaging the airline's reputation.

Some of these airlines have been heavily criticized by Governments and travelers alike for following unethical policies, even fraudulent at times.

Many airlines have hidden costs (taxes, airport and baggage handling fees etc) which aren't included in the fares mentioned on the advertisements in order to make the price appear lower. They regularly check the baggage size and weight while imposing heavy penalties on any extras. One of the airlines even charged a handicapped person for carrying his wheelchair. One other airline is proposing an outrageous policy to charge for using toilets onboard. In order to avoid such incidents, regulators are changing the existing rules trying to make them more lucid so that they cannot be misused.

The emergence of Low Cost Airlines started a constructive price war in the aviation industry which led the traditional airlines to rethink their tariff rates. This made air travel available to a wider section of the society. Today, Low Cost Airlines are giving stiff competition to the Indian railways and more number of people travelling in 2nd AC, are reconsidering their options since the tickets prices are only nominally higher, even comparable in some cases. But more demand leads to more aircrafts which in turn leads to increase in emission (even though new aircrafts are more energy efficient) and hence contributes to the much prevalent problem of global warming. Although the advent of Low Cost Airlines has contributed to the economic growth, they still have a negative impact on the environment.

From a humble beginning during their inception, Low Cost Airlines today share a major chunk of the total market share. Although initially the concept was limited to USA and Europe, they have spread rapidly all across the world over the period of last ten years. They already provide a tough competition to the traditional airlines on the shorter routes. During the time of global recession, their need has become more apparent since every company is incorporating cost cutting measures.

This position is cemented by the recent trends which have shown a steady increase in their market share over the last year. In India, every major airline either already or planning to have its own low cost service division. Folks, it seems that the Low Cost Airlines are here to stay.

Arpit Maru is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay.

Apart from Aerospace Engineering, he has also been interested in the world of finance for quite some time.

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THE ELECTRONIC TOILETS

ONE FLAG IN SPACE

The Illuminated streets

Devaluation of won.. very cheap 1$ = 1100 Won But it's a very costly country, You wont get anything less than $2-3

Started by Sanjay Som, a student from Washington University. Idea is all space vehicles should have 1 common flag (called the blue marble) to show our unity in space. We hope to put this flag up on Pratham too!

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Tete a tete with Naveed Hussain, Boeing Dr. Naveed Hussain graced the occasion of Zephyr this year with a popular talk on Global Technology Collaboration.

Prior to the lecture, he joined some students of our department in a session with on careers and the future of Boeing.

I think the first question that's wholly owned and controlled by popping in all of our heads is when will Boeing. We're also looking for fresh Boeing start hiring from IIT Bombay? graduates as well as experienced Ph.D. working shoulder to shoulder in That's a good question, straight to the aerodynamics and CFD projects. In point! We're hiring right now in India – addition to that, we also hire master's a team of 10 people. Several doctor- students in Aerospace. We hire ates in CFD - one from IIT Kanpur. As bachelors for the technology side, but our business needs will grow in India, research side – we look for aerospacewe're going to continue to hire more. related experience.

Not in 2009, because we're trying to get through a difficult financial time. Universities abroad provide a Masters Aerospace as an industry tends to be in engineering as well as a masters in lagging as compared to other industry science. For the industry, which one metrics and tend to hold back longer do you think is more favourable? than others. We've only had about 70 net orders this year, as opposed to over Usually universities have varied a 1000 last year. It's a very difficult programs depending on the courses economic environment but we still they offer. For Boeing, this is semantics hired 10 people this year in India and it really. Focus on universities that you shall continue to grow. We see a think is fit for you and offers a robust market for commercial airplanes in program that you are attracted to.

India for the next 20 years as well as on the defense side. Lots of business is to As a Masters Student, given that the be done in India, and we want to recession is on and it's difficult to get synergistically develop our technology placed in the Aerospace industry, to in India for India but also for the global stay in touch with the R&D sector for Aerospace industry. Our ambition is to the industry, what areas must a grow, but survive for the moment. student focus on?

We're even considering some internship programs. We believe that I would say that you are here because internship programs must have some you are passionate about Aerospace. critical mass. When you have a small As IIT graduates, you are capable of team, and you hire an intern, it's a little doing anything. You must continue to difficult to absorb the intern, given love what you do. One area that has how small operations are. We may demand for this talent in India are choose to pilot some in 2010 but for places like government laboratories that, we need to grow more. like NAL or ADA or DRDO. You could also take your skills and walk into What is the kind of student profiles Infosys and Wipro too! But if you have a you're looking at for recruitment into passion for aerospace, I would Boeing India – is it core research, encourage you to think of this as marketing or management oriented? 'differed compensation' and go work at these places and contribute to India's Boeing as a whole hires across the aerospace infrastructure and ecosysboard – sales, marketing, business tem. Do it for a few years and you could development, HR, IT. For the research become the director of the laboratory! and technology centre, we're looking That could also be a great entry point for diverse talent. Ph.D. level research into Boeing. The contacts that you skills for in-house strategic R&D make and the visibility that you get

Dr. Naveed Hussain is vice president of Engineering and Technology for Boeing India, based at the Boeing Research & Technology-India Centre, Bengaluru. As the managing director of BR&T-I, he is responsible for leading the development of the enterprise India engineering and technology strategy, identifying and establishing engineering design and technology development opportunities, and implementing selected opportunities to support Boeing’s overall India strategy. across the aerospace landscape nationally and internationally will be invaluable to you. I would as you therefore, to consider. Don't look at things very quantitatively with your resumes and once again look at it as differed compensation. You can make a lot of money later on because you'd have developed a strong base that will be unique in skills.

After you finish your studies, how does an internship in aerospace differ from a job in some other sector?

An internship is useful when you're still in school. Maybe one summer or one semester. Unless you're absolutely hell-bent on doing research or want to become a professor, then I would say, get as much research experience as you can. Go for a Ph.D. and keep the academic track going. If you're interested in the industry, you need the industry exposure. After that, you can stay back one semester and take classes in courses you didn't know you were interested in.

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Is Boeing planning to come up with Does Boeing hire test pilots? If I'm initiatives on space research and zero enthusiastic to be one, what should my gravity technology? Maybe a research approach be? project on the ISS… Infact, test pilots are some of our highest We were actually prime contractors for paid employees. Really! From what I've the ISS. NASA contracted the ISS to seen, the test pilot community is quite a Boeing. As a provider of space assis- tight nit bunch. I'd even have to make an tance, we're interested in Zero G application to have lunch with them! physics. We're working on primarily Though, from the ones Boeing have space systems like structural analysis hired, a large majority of them have and modeling on the same. At the military backgrounds where the same time, we don't have any grand Government basically subsidized their plans to really build more Zero G training and they got 1000s of hours of infrastructure for testing. We employ jet-time. Jet-time is very expensive and alternate methods to do Zero G testing, the number of hours pilots fly is a very like fly the KC135 aircraft in parabolic important metric and the air-worthiness trajectories and get a minute of Zero G of a pilot is a very measurable parameter. just by the airplane arc compensating Simply put 1200 hours is better than 600 for the acceleration due to gravity. It's hours. You need to get time, in some way, very expensive and though it's that's most optimum for you and in many important, it's not necessarily driving cases, it turns out to be military. The our requirements right now. In the more hours you get, the higher your industry, there are multiple variables ratings go. You have to get recognized for and your customers drive them. excellence in what you do, and only the There's performance, where custom- best of the best get to go up and fly as ers want the best. If cost was never a they're going up on unproven platforms – parameter, we wouldn't mind doing there's no manual! A simulator needs to Zero G testing to have the best be tuned on their basis. All other pilots performing Aerospace systems in the need to learn from them from their experience and knowledge. We send the world. best of the best, because they're also People say fuel is limited and will end risking their lives. I'm not trying to deter in the next 50 years. Is Boeing looking you, but especially military aircrafts are for or doing research on alternate very high performance and agile aircrafts fuels and alternate sources of energy? with an eject button. It's a job that rides you on the edge of the envelope.

All aviation companies including Boeing, inspite of going through heavy Is Boeing making any moves on comlosses or otherwise and spending it on mercial space travel? research. They believe in the future and they do it. Companies that have We're watching and making research been holding back, will die out. We advancements in space planes. The continue to keep investing R&D dollars tourism aspect is also great with the in biofuels research. Infact, India is a prospect of being able to see Planet Earth very good place for doing this research from the window. We're watching yes, like algae-based fuel etc. Our vision but sometimes it makes sense for a and ambition is to use some kind of business like ours to get into this industry biofuels for the future at the same time through an MNA. Our shareholders keeping in mind the costs required to having the appetite for this kind of a risk procure these fuels as opposed to just is far less than maybe a venture capitalist or an angel investor. As of now, it's very drilling in the ground. far-reaching for our portfolio.

What is next on Boeing's mandate after the 787?

Maybe you'll see concepts like blended-wing bodies. We were also considering a program called the Sonic Cruiser – an aircraft that flies just below the speed of sound so that we're still in subsonic aerodynamics and propulsion but you can reach your destination that much faster and we worked and invested a lot on it, and we never actually launched the program. At the time, Airbus made the move to make the A380 and we decided to make what was then called the 'Dreamliner' 787.

Why? Nobody was willing to pay so much, especially when operating costs go up as you approach the speed of sound. The fuel burn increases exponentially as one approaches speeds of sound. Getting there faster yes, but it's a lot more expensive. If we had implemented it at the time, given fuel prices went up the roof, we'd have been in a lot of trouble. People's premium to reach 20 minutes faster is not too high.

Right now, there are already programs happening on the next technology – the next game-changer.

We've identified 4 key areas P e r f o r m a n c e , A f f o r d a b i l i t y, Sustainability and the Environment.

But that's all that I can say as of now.

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The ThrustSSC Program - Down The Ages The ThrustSSC Project set the first Supersonic World Land Speed Record. Here's an exclusive from the man himself Richard Noble, the whole and soul of the project on how the project has come a long way from an idea to the record books -

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ack in the 1950s and 60s Britain had an incredible period of aircraft development – we designed and built the first Mach 2 fighter - the Lightning, which held the Worlds Air Speed record at 1320 mph; built transonic bombers like the Handley Page Victor and Avro Vulcan; developed the incredible TSR-2 and the amazing BAC Concorde. In the United States, Kelly Johnston was developing the U2, the A-4, the SR-71 and the D21.

For a child at school age this was an amazing period of development and every kid had a picture of these aircrafts –and every kid wanted to be an engineer or a pilot.

The years moved on and that wonderful period of development drew to a close, leaving a whole generation of school children wondering how they could ever become involved in such amazing engineering projects. A viable alternative soon appeared – the World Land Speed Record – which had distinct possibilities - the high performance cars needing afterburning jet engines, transonic car performance, jet engines being bought cheaply from scrap dealers etc. There was this huge public interest created – and because the Brits have held the World Record longer than any other nation, a Land Speed Record challenge held a certain legitimacy. There just might have been a possibility after all.

How it all started We started with a very simple car Thrust 1 powered by a Rolls-Royce Derwent 8 jet engine extricated from a scrap yard just hours before the French Government arrived to buy the batch of used engines for their Gloster Meteor fighters which patrolled the Pacific nuclear test atolls. The car was designed by me, built by me and driven by me – which at least kept all the risk in one place! It was the most dangerous part of the entire programme and on reflection it was a classic study in instability. True to form it flipped at Richard Noble was the holder high speed and we learned important of the land speed record lessons: between 1983 and 1997, and 1.When a jet car leaves the ground it was the project director of keeps on flying ThrustSSC, the vehicle which 2. When you have a high speed holds the current land speed accident it is very important to carry record, set at Black Rock out the post crash sequence in Desert, Nevada in 1997. meticulous order: 1.Go to the pub!

2.Take the car remains to the scrap yard 1960's record breaker Donald 3.Start again!

Campbell once said that once the The next car was Thrust2 - this time speed bug gets into your system it designed by John Ackroyd and never lets go. One day I was down at powered by a Rolls-Royce Avon 302 the flying club and by sheer coincifrom a Lightning F6. With 17,000lbs dence I met a quietly spoken missile static thrust and 2G acceleration, it had designer – this was sheer serendipity transonic potential. Starting from a because Craig Breedlove was building blank sheet of paper the project took 6 the US supersonic challenger Spirit of years of sheer hell to get it together – America, the McLaren F1 team was 250 companies took part and we finally promoting their Maverick supersonic brought the World Record back to car project and we just had to chalBritain at 633.468mph in 1983. The lenge. It seemed a mistake to let big American LSR domination which had money buy the precious record. And seen Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove the first through the sound barrier on duel for the record from 400 mph to land was a very big prize indeed - the 600 mph was now over and the record land speed record to end all land speed was back with the Brits. It was a close records! The aerodynamicist name is run thing, the Avon engine had to be Ron Ayers, responsible for the over tempered to get the power and on Bloodhound 2 surface to air missile. He the best run of all at Mach 0.84 the car was bored with retirement and he lived was within 7 mph of take off. close to my home.

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The ThrustSSC

The world was changing – in Britain there was a big move away from engineering and manufacturing as the focus shifted to the City of London and its highly irresponsible financial services speculating with easy capital. The investment timelines became shorter and shorter until the City casino ran out of working capital and the global crash became inevitable.

Minister of Defence Equipment.

American Steve Fossett was making serious efforts to take the ThrustSSC record and we needed a defender.

Our plan was try to talk the Minister into lending us a Eurojet EJ200 Eurofighter Typhoon engine. As expected the Minister was non committal – and then he changed all our lives:

As a small team of 3 we took on the mighty McLaren F1 team developing our car aerodynamics using extensive CFD at Swansea University and then validating it with Mach 1.2 rocket model firings on the Ministry's long test track at Pendine in South Wales.

With the model accelerating at 40G this was much more exciting than wind You can do something for us! tunnel testing! Ron Ayers was compar- Outreach ing 25 different stability cases from the CFD and rocket test data – and when he About this time Andy Green and I found brought the data together from the ourselves in a meeting with Lord Drayson contd... two completely unproven sources he the motor racing pioneer and then got a straight line correlation with the largest variance being 4%. We had qualified the CFD and proven the ThrustSSC stability. As soon as we published the results the McLaren team realized they could only follow our lead and decided not to proceed further.

Of course the build of ThrustSSC with no capital and no main sponsor was a nightmare. Interestingly the British media started to give up at this stage stating that the mental age of their audience was 10 and that there was no interest in technology. With the loss of the traditional media, we moved quickly to the web and in 1996 built a massive 800 page website with a global following which was to reach 300 million pages in 1997 – 35 times the size of a top Formula 1 team website. And what were the web followers reading? The ThrustSSC technology pages – so much for the British media and BBC understanding of their readership and audience!

On the 15th October 1997 on the Black Rock Desert Nevada Andy Green drove ThrustSSC though the sound barrier for the 4th and 5th times – and gained the World's first supersonic land speed record. The supersonic bangs could be heard upto 40 miles away, but notably 15 miles away in the little town of Gerlach where the shocks shook the school building causing the classroom sprinkler covers to fly off!

ThrustSSC documentaries were on satellite and terrestrial television for 12 years and even today the website runs 2,000 page views every day. (www.thrustssc.com)

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It appears that the British school kids had become bored with science and technology and the country was running short of engineers. Lord Drayson wanted us to create an iconic project and run in through all the UK schools –in effect to replicate the conditions of the 1960s. I said yes!

Still, The Minister said he wouldn't give us any money!

Studying the schools we found that the schools population was being intensely stimulated by almost everything they saw played with on their computers, or read – except in the schools. This meant that the valuable teaching was becoming dry and uninteresting by comparison. The schools teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics needed a highly stimulating, high technology project for their classes to study. But there wasn't anything – the Defence industry could give no data or calculations on its projects or products. The Space industry was equally reluctant and the most secretive of all were the Formula 1 and NASCAR race car teams which shared no data whatsoever. Then we realized that the Land Speed Record was the only subject which could share real data – we are uniquely able to provide data because the FIA rules are minimal – the car has to have four wheels and be driven by the driver .

That being the case, all the LSR competitor cars were very different and the technology doesn't necessarily transfer. If technology transfer doesn't help the competition, then the technology can all be made available to the schools – and that means all the design data and all the performance data from the car made available within minutes of completing every run.

There was one more point – to be a truly iconic project the car must have a totally incredible performance. I wanted Mach 1.5 but Ron Ayers would go no further than Mach 1.4. It took 27 hard months for the 17 person team to reach the point where the design could progress to build – there was absolutely no precedent to work from and almost all aspects of the design are highly original. We expect to roll out in March 2011.

The Bloodhound SSC car is a miracle – it is powered by the 20,000lbs thrust EJ200 and supplemented with a 27,500 lbs thrust rocket booster – the largest hybrid rocket ever built in Europe . The 0-1000 mph time is 42 seconds and peak acceleration is +3G . The booster rocket has an oxidizer pump powered by an 800BHP V-12 race car engine - so we need the entire output of a Formula 1 car just to drive the fuel pump! A huge effort has gone into the CFD development of the design with a five man team funded for three years and now we know we can do it.

Of course I could go on forever about the amazing Bloodhound SSC and its incredible performance but you w o u l d b e b e tt e r o f f g o i n g o n t h e w e b s i t e www.bloodhoundssc.com. You can even have your name on the car fin! As I write this 2,000 UK schools have signed up to the programme and the numbers are growing at 100 a week. As a result of a major partnership agreement the project is to be promoted to a further 6 million teachers in 2010.

Curiously the incredibly innovative and creative British aerospace industry of the 1960s seems to have morphed into its successor the Bloodhound Land Speed record programme. And there is one more fitting analogy – on the way to Mach 1.4 the Bloodhound SSC car will take the current low level air speed record!

BloodhoundSSC

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In Pursuit of a Fantasy – The SkyCar I would like to begin with a quote, which the great Henry Ford made back in 1940 when he was the Chairman of the Ford Motor Company - “Mark my words: A combination of an airplane and a motorcar is coming. You may smile.

But it will come…”

Radically new technology goes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed by those ignorant of its potential Next, it is subverted by those threatened by it potential Finally, it is considered self-evident This article is centered on my development of what the press first labeled a Skycar, a name that I gratefully accepted and subsequently trademarked. The Skycar is an aircraft that is designed to take off and land vertically, fly at speeds up to 380 miles per hour, at altitudes up to 29,000 feet, and be driven on the street, perhaps to get from your home to a nearby takeoff and landing area, called a vertiport.

I became fascinated by VTOL flight when I was about five years old after saving and observing a couple of hummingbirds which were trapped in a shed on our chicken farm in Canada. My first VTOL-related project was to build a 4-man Ferris wheel when I was 11 years old.

My first serious effort to develop a VTOL aircraft began at age 15 when I designed and started to construct a helicopter. I was able to build only part of it before reality set in and I realized the enormity of the task. On our chicken farm in Canada my father also ran a hatchery. When the power goes out in a hatchery the heat rises in the incubators and kills the unhatched chicks. My father hooked up the tail rotor of my helicopter to a battery-powered motor and was able to circulate the air until the power came back on and thereby saved about 25,000 baby chickens; so I suppose my initial helicopter effort served some purpose.

I was an uninspired student in high school and spent most of my time building things or reading Grolier's Topical Encyclopedia, especially the science volume. I did not pursue an undergraduate degree but rather went to a trade school where I continued to develop my manual skills, becoming a certified airframe and power plant mechanic. Later, after a couple years in industry, while taking graduate courses at night at McGill University, I was allowed into McGill's graduate program where I received my Masters and Ph.D. degrees. At that time I decided to fill in the gaping holes in my basic education and took an assistant professor position at the University of California at Davis where I taught in order to learn. Concurrently I began building my first full-size VTOL aircraft in my oversized garage, which was attached to a small house.

The direction my business career took is the result of underestimating the task I set up for myself, namely the initially naïve but ultimately committed goal of building a practical personalized VTOL aircraft. At the start I had little feel for the financial, technical and personal complexity associated with this 50-year effort that involved raising more than 200 million dollars in relatively small increments, expending over one million man-hours and keeping my initial investors happy for 35 years.

Dr. Paul Moller is the President of Moller International. He has spent the past forty years developing the Moller Skycar personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle.

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To survive I created various partnerships and business corporations in order to provide capital to continue to develop the Skycar. I often felt like that farmer who is absolutely elated after inheriting a couple million dollars because now he could farm for another ten years. The funny thing is that I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur because creating a Skycar business was not a goal in itself for me at any time; rather I undertook entrepreneurial activities as adjunct sources of capital to support my over-riding goal of creating a motorized magic carpet.

I gave up my tenured position at the University in the late 1960's to begin building what I thought at the time was a practical VTOL aircraft. Leaving, in effect, one of the most secure jobs in the world for one of the least secure. I was motivated to do so when an investor came forward who had seen a press release of my first VTOL aircraft flight at the university airport. Together we created a contract that outlined what percentage of this chapter S corporation, called M Research, he would get for a specific amount of his money. In less than six months this initial investor went bankrupt. Fortunately I had raised enough money elsewhere to operate for a few additional months. It was apparent, however, that money was not going to come in fast enough to allow me to achieve some measure of success developing my VTOL aircraft. I looked around for product opportunities that might sustain me. One product I developed and tested was a backpack thrust unit that you strap on your back, enabling you to ski uphill as well as down. It worked fairly well but was extremely loud. The problem was that there was very little space to put a muffler. I ended up designing a doughnut looking muffler in which the fan hub ran through the muffler and it fit between the fan and the engine. It worked remarkably well.

Motorcycles at that time were very noisy and my associates in the business all had motorcycles. The backpack unit was going to take a lot of capital to develop and market and had a number of risks, such as fingers in the fan, fire, and just plain high speed crashes. Considering the associated liabilities we decided to apply our super effective muffler to motorcycles instead. In order to broaden its appeal I was able to design in and patent additional features that made it a .S. Forest Service approved spark arrestor as well. This combination gave me a very strong patent position. This early product was fairly profitable and got our marketing started.

Marketing this type of product is really a very grass-roots activity because the product becomes known primarily by word of mouth from its users. In this product's case, this was difficult because everyone believes that reduced noise means reduced power. The spark arrestor feature turned out to be more important than the muffler because it was often a requirement, while muffling was an option. Besides, the Xdusor, as it was known, was not very aesthetically appealing (some would say ugly). Once we were in the muffler manufacturing and marketing business I got a feel for what kind of noise muffling product would cause a motorcyclist to buy it for reasons other than muffling, since they muffled only when they had to. We then used some of the sound attenuating elements of the Xdusor, made it tunable (adjustable noise vs. backpressure), and gave it a very futuristic design. One of the keys to the SuperTrapp's success was that we were able to show that it could actually generate suction in the exhaust. Everyone seems to believe, rightly or wrongly, that suction is going to increase power. So we were selling power, not muffling.

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Over the years I have used every avenue or opportunity available to me to raise capital for the Skycar's development. I developed the Davis Research Park, which brought a few million dollars into the business. I also developed a number of unmanned VTOL aircraft under government contracts for various military and civilian applications. No profit here but these contracts under-wrote much of our Skycar and engine R&D costs. We took refundable deposits on Skycar delivery positions; survived by refinancing our present facilities a number of times; sold the facility; bought it back when SuperTrapp sold; lost it again at a low point where we couldn't meet the mortgage payments; bought it back under miraculous circumstances that would fill a book just to record the details; my sisters and friends, including my ex-wife, invested hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lights were kept on and doors open on more than one occasion with the help of credit cards of my wife and myself as well as those of my vice president and my general manager.

The problem with a product like the Skycar is that as a sophisticated system rather than a simple product it requires very high technical expertise at a number of levels. It also required more than one million manhours of development. Put these two together and you have the need for a very large amount of capital spread over a fairly long time. How is it possible to finance such a project? I would say in theory it is not because it violates many of the elements that make for a successful entrepreneurial operation, i.e.: 1. It is far too futuristic to capture the interest of venture capitalists, institutions, investment bankers or the military, even with some measure of success.

2. Major projects of this nature generally are funded initially by the military and the military tend to enter into contracts with large companies, which have significant lobbying support. Therefore, the only militaryrelated contracts I was able to get are those too small to interest the large companies. We obtained a number of SBIR grants, which can now be up to $750,000. The paperwork is outrageous and, although they contributed somewhat to the Skycar success, I would not have undertaken them except for my need to survive. On the other hand, $750,000 might be more than enough to create a successful business from a technically innovative idea that can lead to a simpler marketable product.

3. The SEC and state security rules governing the raising of investment capital make it very difficult to raise money in significant amount other than from investment banks, venture capitalists and institutions. These are the various groups that have no interest in long-range, expensive developments whose future depends on military sales and/or the passing of government regulations that can take years and many millions of dollars.

4. There is, however, a very important potential source of capital called the sophisticated investor who secures this title by demonstrating that he or she can afford to lose a large amount of money. I am not certain why that makes them sophisticated. In any case I prefer the often-used term - “angel investor� and quite frankly I have had my share of angels who are believers in the future and are willing to support those beliefs.

My angels have been very patient and have continued to support me with additional investment over several decades. Everyone starting a business needs an angel; unfortunately a project such as the Skycar needs either an impractical number of angels or maybe the Paul Allen type of angel who, on occasion, has written a check for nearly one billion dollars and could afford to see his investment disappear.

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I have tried to make a point as to why trying to develop and fund a project as complex as the Skycar is probably too risky. Creating your own product such as the SuperTrapp muffler or developing a research park can be financially and emotionally very rewarding with far less risk. There is little doubt that by creating the SuperTrapp muffler and making a successful business of producing and marketing it I was able to encourage investors to invest in the Skycar. The development and demonstration of our rotapower engine in a number of products also added to investors' confidence in the Skycar's prospects, especially since this engine makes the Skycar possible. The rotapower engine development is a separate story involving 40 years of development, acquisition of a NASDAQ-listed company's engine assets through litigation, licensing of engine technology from a multi-billion dollar company that subsequently went bankrupt and finally the acquisition of the rotary engine production equipment that was developed for General Motors but never used when GM decide to drop the Wankeltype rotary engine.

Recently Moller International spun-off the Rotapower engine into a separate corporation called Freedom Motors. With letters of intent to purchase over 500,000 engines (~$1 billion) manufacturing this engine became a promising opportunity. Moller International retains a royalty on all engine sales, while the company is mostly owned by Moller International stockholders.

Personally over time I have developed this sense that we all have a spiritual covenant to fulfill. The terms of your contract may not be obvious but if we open our minds to who we are in relation to others around us we can get hints to its terms. For example, who our parents are as individuals and our relationship with them, be it good or bad, carries a message as to part of our contract. Relationships are rarely accidental. If they are bad perhaps part of this contract is to find ways to make them better or perhaps it is to find the strength and reasons to endure the relationship. Learning to productively get out of an unproductive relationship is certainly part of everyone's covenant as well. I believe there are reasons related to our spiritual covenant for much that happens to us, although free will must always play a part if we are to be held partly responsible for the results, which I believe we are. I do not believe anyone's spiritual covenant is to do bad things and therefore the recent examples of corporate malfeasance comes from ignoring what must be part of all spiritual covenants that “what goes around comes around�.

Every significant and prolonged undertaking is likely to have its dark times. Listening to your mind, body and spirit during those dark times is essential for the ultimate well being of you and those around you.

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Research at the

Lighter than Air (LTA) Systems Laboratory Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay currently works on a niche and latent field in Aerospace in Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) Systems. Let Harishwar Subramanian and Nidhi Shanbhag enlighten us on what this research is all about, what IIT Bombay is doing currently and future prospects of the same -

Historical Perspectives The Lighter than Air systems laboratory at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay was the brainchild of Professor Rajkumar S. Pant, Associate Professor at the department.

Professor Pant's interest in the subject began whilst doing his PhD from Cranfield University, the UK, in 1997, wherein his doctorate thesis was on “Generalised Cost Optimization of Commuter & Regional Aircraft, including Airport Considerations�.

Airships, at that point in time, were a very niche area of research, with their usability restricted mostly to advertising and aerial observatory stations.

However, this also presented plenty of opportunities for ideation, and more so, its emphasis on Green Technology, especially in the wake of rising levels of air pollution were the reasons that led to initiation of research on airships at the Aerospace Engineering Department.

Air-Ship Applicability The practicality of the commercial usage of airships as a modern means of transport was initiated in the year 2000, the year in which Uttarakhand, the 27th State of the Republic of India, was established. Owing to its geographical disadvantage and extreme climate, it was fairly disconnected from the rest of the country. It was here that Professor Pant, himself a native of the region, sensed a need to drastically improve the status-quo. It was also in the mandate of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the then President of India, to encourage ideas and initiatives to develop better means of transportation for

Programme on Airship Design In the first phase of PADD, basic conceptual design studies of airships and Development The Programme on Airship Design and Development (PADD) was launched at IIT Bombay in 2001, with team members drawn from various national aerospace organizations and private sector companies in India. PADD was aimed at developing airship technology in India for various scientific and commercial applications for various roles such as aerial surveillance, disaster management, and advertisement & product promotion. This study project was sponsored by Technology Information Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).

for transportation of goods and passengers over mountainous terrain under 'hot and high' conditions were ca r r i e d o u t . Te c h n o - e co n o m i c feasibility of leasing airships for operation in India was investigated, and a Project Definition Report for development of two types of airship was proposed in future phases: the PADD Demo and the PADD PaxCargo. In the space of 1 year, demo airships were built, firstly, with no payload, and secondly, carrying a payload of 1.5 tonnes. The results were extremely encouraging, and the airship was showcased at Techfest 2002, at IIT Bombay.

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As part of this study, two remotely controlled airships; the PADD Micro (with a payload capacity of 1.0 kg) and PADD Mini (with a payload capacity of 3.5 kg) were designed and developed.

The PADD team was invited to carry out a flight demonstration of these airships at the 90th Indian Science Congress at Bangalore in 2003. Similarly, these airships have also been demonstrated at other locations in the country.

It was after this that the LTA Systems Laboratory was set up in the Aerospace Engineering Department of IIT Bombay, in which many R&D and technology development projects related to design, analysis, fabrication and testing of LTA systems have been carried out. Initially, to set the ball rolling, it was given a project by ADRD to optimize the shape of the airship built. This results in pioneering a unique sizing methodology for airships.

Subsequent Research Subsequent research in this field has included exploring the possibilities of aiding the defence in building selfsustainable airships armed with GPS devices, mounted with pseudo satellites. Some of the other areas of research since then have also included investigating the various design challenges in building Stratospheric airships, viz., airships that can operate even in the Stratosphere (>10 km above the surface of the Earth).

Sufficient research has also been done, over the last two years, in the sphere of multi-disciplinary optimization, with respect to Shape, Aerodynamics, Structures, and many more.

Recent Milestones The most significant milestone in recent years, as far as the project is concerned, is a mention in “Jane's All the World's Aircrafts�, a world authority on aircraft under development, which bears a true testimony to the quality of work done.

Another feather in the cap has been the chance to display and fly the airship at the International Seminar on Avalanches, at Manali, India, earlier this year.

Future Applications Some of the future applications of airships are envisaged at targeting niche applications and making it a mainstream mode of transport. The effectiveness of using Helium as a fuel is also being investigated.

As we bode for a bright future in this niche area of research, there are also many unsolved problems, which make the future prospects rather exciting. The field of unmanned and autonomous flight for airships is presently an active area of research. The impact of fatigue loading on airships is also being investigated. Another important area of research is its use as a tracking device, as this would be an asset to the military forces.

All this does augur well for the future of airships, and it would just be a matter of time when the domain of airship usability extends much beyond its present use in certain niche applications, such as advertising, tourism, camera platforms for sporting events, and aerial observation and interdiction platforms.

Harishwar Subramanian is a final year B. Tech student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. His interests include Aircraft Design, and he has been involved in a project under Prof. Pant on the same this past year.

Nidhi Shanbhag is a second year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay.

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Busemann Biplane Supersonic flight and no boom? Let Ashwath Kirthyvasan decode this for you.

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t is one of the well known methods for drag reduction in supersonic and hypersonic flight regimes. Invented

by Adolf Busemann, the biplane prohibits the formation of shocks waves due to its structure, thus allowing for “boom-less transport”. The biplane reduces wave drag by interfering the shock waves and expansion waves which are generated between the biplane. The biplane design comprises of two triangular cross section plates, separated by enough distance to ensure that the flow does not choke and remains supersonic. The reason why this particular design works is that when the shock wave is generated on the leading edge of say the upper triangle, it hits the peak of the lower triangle to form another expansion fan/shock wave which is terminated at the trailing edge of the upper triangle. The figure below illustrates the principle of the biplane.

Since the external shocks are reduced drastically (by as much a s 8 5 % ) , t h e s h o c k wave s reaching the ground are also greatly reduced thereby resulting in sonic boom reduction.

Theoretically, since all the shockwaves are inside the biplane, there are no shockwaves external to the biplane. The upper and lower surfaces of the biplane are parallel to the flow and hence shockwaves aren't generated here. As there are no external shockwaves, the biplane has ZERO wave drag.

Recently, experiments and simulations were carried out to understand the feasibility of the biplane. Flow analysis tests were carried out at Mach number of 2.5, using Euler flow simulations using “Unstructured Mesh Method”, the pressure contours indicated that the shock waves did indeed disappear by interference between the two wings of the biplane.

Ashwath Kirthyvasan is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. Ashwath’s research interests are in the field of hypersonic flows.

A new aircraft is being developed in Japan in the Institute of fluid science (Tohuku University) using this principle. It's called the Silent Supersonic Transport and works on the Busemann principle. Here are some conceptual drawings .

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Microcombustors From computers to phones, everything is getting smaller these days, so why not Aerospace applications too? Here’s Asgerali Masalawala giving us a glimpse the world of microcombustion, the future of combustion.

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n this era, with the rush to make all mechanical and electrical equipment smaller by the day, the need for an efficient, long lasting power source at the micro-scale is felt like never before.

Today, batteries are our primary source of portable power. But battery technology today has reached its peak.

Alkaline, Lithium-ion, Lithium-polymer, NiCd, all suffer from low efficiencies, high costs and are harmful to the environment. The time has come to call onto an old friend, hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons burn with a combustion efficiency that's almost 20 times more than any battery today. Even with low conversion efficiencies to electrical energy, it would still be far more beneficial. Add to that the fact that the fuel that powers the device would be cheap, easily available and more environment friendly.

Is this a dream? If this technology is so beneficial, why haven't you heard of it yet?

Well, here's the problem. Way back in the 19th century, Sir Humphrey Davy proved that a flame would be quenched if made to pass through sub-millimeter dimensions. It was a huge discovery in its time and led to invention of various flame arresters that are even used today.

But this fact is the biggest hindrance in the development of microcombustors.

A microcombustor is exactly as it sounds. It is a very small combustor, though not at the micron level, that burns fuel to produce energy that can be converted to electrical energy using a micro-turbine. The concept still exists only in the feasibility stage and a lot of research is taking place in this field. But there are many hurdles ahead, from the quenching of flames, to the modeling of chemical kinetics at such small scales, the selection of materials and the fabrication of these micro-components.

Swiss Roll Combustor

There are primarily two reasons why a flame would get quenched in such small dimensions. Firstly, because of the large surface area to volume ratio, the loss of heat at the surface of the combustor turns out to be greater than the heat produced during combustion.

Secondly, the mass flow rate required to sustain the system increases the velocity of the flow to a point where the residence time is less than the combustion time i.e. the fuel does not stay in the combustor long enough to burn completely resulting in blowout.

The Swiss-Roll Combustor seems to be a promising concept in tackling such issues. The swiss-roll technique involves using the heat of the exhaust gases to heat the fuel air mixture, thereby reducing co m b u st i o n t i m e . A n o t h e r approach is the use of ceramic materials to reduce quenching due to heat loss.

The MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory, is developing a MEMS based micropower generator with a total volume of 300 mm3 that is designed to produce 10-20W. P r i vate co r p o rat i o n s l i ke Honeywell, have also ventured into this field. A free-piston microengine is being developed at Honeywell, with a goal of generating ~10 W of electrical power in a 103 mm3 package volume.

The overall size of the MEMS is increased greatly due to the size of the battery.

The micro-power generator being developted at MIT Asgerali Masalawala is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. He did an interesting seminar on Microcombustors in his department last year.

While the idea of micro-power sources may still be infeasible with so many hurdles yet to be tackled, the applications of such a technology are very diverse mobile phones, laptops, micro aerial vehicles and even micro satellites. Given the current need for power in the small scale, the potential gains of developing such a system are very large.

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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SPACE TECHNOLOGY Being the first institute in the world to offer undergraduate courses in space science, IIST has come a long way over the past couple of years. Here's Shiva Sai Krishna, a student pursuing Avionics at IIST updating us on what's IIST been up to and what plans it has for the future.

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he Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO has been at the forefront of technological advances and has been the pride of our nation since its inception. However its ambitious plans have always been hindered by the lack of sufficient numbers of young scientists. IIST has thus been established by ISRO under the Department of Space, Govt. of India to impart quality technical education to young minds and to fulfill its needs for brilliant engineers and scientists. During his inaugural speech, Former Director of VSSC and Director IIST, Dr. B.N. Suresh emphasized that unlike conventional learning, IIST has been planning to teach science and technology in an interesting and innovative way.

This has been motto of IIST since its inception. At present IIST offers three B.Tech courses in Aerospace, Avionics and Physical Sciences. IIST has started accepting students for PhD programme as well.

Facilities As of present, IIST is located in a temporary campus in VSSC and lacks its own facilities. Engineering and science labs for students are conducted in the labs of reputed colleges in Trivandrum. Students are also given the opportunity to wet their hands in VSSC labs, thus giving them valuable practical experience.

The permanent campus of IIST which has been recently inaugurated by our Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is likely to be operational by 2010.

Advanced engineering and science labs housing state of the art equipment are being constructed. A supersonic wind tunnel facility is also under consideration. An astronomical observatory is also being constructed off-campus at Ponmudi hill resort, 20 km away from the main campus.

One unique feature of IIST is the strong link between the institute and the prominent national laboratory in its vicinity – VSSC. IIST students and faculty have access to VSSC scientists, engineers and also the labs - which are one of the most advanced aerospace labs in the country. This is a special privilege to the students, which cannot be found anywhere else in the world the exception being Caltech – JPL duo. Caltech is an academic institution which controls NASA laboratory JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) although the reverse is the case with IIST – ISRO. Students are provided with an ideal environment to pursue academic and research activities. The institute also has a scholarship programme covering tuition and hostel fees and a book grant of Rs. 3000 per semester for those students who get a TGPA above 6.5. After completion of their course students have to work in ISRO for 5 years.

Shiva Sai Krishna is a third year student at the Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology. He has been active involved in student-based research activities on campus.

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Research & Projects IIST has initiated two types of projects viz. student projects and institute projects. Students who wish to conduct research activity and have innovative ideas are granted funding by the institute based on the recommendations of a projects committee consisting of a panel of VSSC experts and IIST faculty. Currently projects on dye-sensitized solar cells, piezo electric crystals etc. are in progress

Plans are also afoot to construct a supersonic wind tunnel complex in IIST. It will be one of the largest wind tunnels in the country and is expected to satisfy the needs of the institute and ISRO. Students and teachers will play an active role in designing this facility.

Institute projects are large scale projects designed to bring together students from multiple streams and engage them towards the realization of a common goal. Students are divided into groups of specialized activities and encouraged to work together in an industry like atmosphere. This also hones their social and management skills and simulates industrial working environment which they may face later in their career. Presently ongoing institute projects are Sounding Rocket Project and Satellite Project. While the components of the payload have not yet been decided, the broad objective of these two projects is to launch a sounding rocket and determine its performance parameters. The satellite is planned to be launched by an ISRO launch vehicle and is expected to conduct studies of ionosphere and solar radiation.

A unique feature of IIST is the seminar series programme under which eminent personalities are invited every month to give lectures and share their experiences with the students.

Prominent personalities invited till date include Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Rakesh Sharma, Prof. Roddam Narasimha, U.R. Rao etc.

AIRSPACE WORD GRID

Seminar Series

Established on 14th September 2007, IIST is now two years old.

With a third batch joining this August, IIST is now strong with 434 students and 54 faculty personnel. Since its inception this novice institute has seen many glorious moments, and has started to make its mark in India as well as abroad. IIST has signed MoU's with several foreign institutions like Ecole Polytechnic, University of Maryland, Caltech etc. With its upcoming infrastructure and the vision for the future, let's hope that IIST makes a name for itself as a premier institute in the fields of Space science and Technology.

CLUES 1.India’s first unmanned lunar probe (11) 2.Leonardo Da Vinci’s contribution to aerospace (11) 3.World's first airline to use an aircraft (a Zeppelin) in revenue (5) 4.Manned space program before Apollo (6) 5.Golf on the moon (4,7) 6.First artificial satellite to orbit the Earth (7) 7.World's first ultra-long range business jet (10) 8.First American woman in space (5.4) 9.Nickname of the first Boeing monoplane bomber, the B-9 – The Flying ___ (8) 10.World’s oldest airline still in operation (3) 11.IATA Code for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (3) 12.First spacecraft to explore another planet - ___ 2 (7)

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Udaan The Student Empowerment Program at the Department of Aerospace Engg, IIT Bombay What was a nascent idea a couple of years ago to a full-fledged structured program of enthusiastic students of the Aerospace Engineering Department, Udaan now works with a definitive plan of action. To guide us through it, here's Harishwar Subramanian and Naresh Ponnana…

Aim There is no young soul in this world not fascinated by the idea of flying. There is however, a need to turn that fascination into a solid and concrete idea, and to inspire and enthuse passion for Engineering in general and Aerospace in specific, by showing how enthralling the quest for technology and development could be!

It was with this vision that Udaan, a School Outreach Programme, steered by the department of Aerospace Engineering IIT Bombay was conceptualized. What was started out by a bunch of enthusiastic professors and faculty members in 2003, Udaan has been revived as a student initiative since 2007. Udaan reaches out to underprivileged schools, conducts workshops and career counselling session aimed at fostering an enthusiasm for the subject. The fact that Udaan has been able to reach out to over 170 schools and over 18,000 students till date, is a testimony of the giant strides taken in realizing the objectives and vision with which it was set up.

Udaan primarily caters to students of 8th and 9th grades. We, as team members of Udaan, envisage reaching out to a further 40 schools by the end of 2010.

Program Module The team members of Udaan have designed a comprehensive 4-hour program module, which is currently executed in each visit to schools.

Starting off, we have an “Aviation Collage” showing different types of commercial and military airplanes, including ones that display complex manoeuvres. This culminates with a short introduction to aircraft controls that describe what it feels like to be in the pilot's seat.

Following this, various videos of fighter jets displaying complex manoeuvres in mid-air are shown, as are videos on airplane crashes and disasters. A highlight of this session is a video that chronicles the NASA Astronaut, Sunnita Williams's “Summer Vacation” at the International Space Station, where she describes life in space, how different it is from earth, the various challenges faced, and how enriching such an experience could be.

Following this, we let students get a hands-on experience of engineering and conduct an Aeromodelling workshop, encouraging students to make paper planes, keeping aerospace fundamentals in mind. Then we demonstrate a prototype water rocket, made from a simple PET bottle, with water as fuel, and propelled by a hand pump.

Rounding up the activities for the day, we conduct a career guidance session and answer various queries the students may have, pertaining to a career in engineering and its future prospects.

Harishwar Subramanian is a final year B. Tech student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. His interests include Aircraft Design, and he has been involved in a project under Prof.

Pant on the same this past year.

Naresh Ponnana is a third year B. Tech student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. He has been enthusiastically involved with Udaan ever since his first year.

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AeroVenture – The Summer Camp From every visit to different schools, we invite 2-3 exceptionally bright students to participate in a summer camp, which we have been conducting for the last 3 years at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay. It intends to provide students with a unique opportunity to learn about Aerospace informally, without the rigours of classroom walls.

The summer camp this year played host to 17 students from different schools. The camp also saw professors chip in with their valuable inputs to raise the spirits of the children. The first day kick-started with a presentation on planes, with greater emphasis on explaining the physics of flying, this included the control surfaces and stability factors. The students were then taught to make 4 different types of paper planes and were given an opportunity to fly them and learn more about control surfaces by experimenting and modifying them. The day was rounded off with a screening of the cult aviation movie “October Sky”, aptly chosen indeed!

The 3rd day began with a presentation on “Periodical Testing of Mig-27 Military Aircraft”, given by one of our faculty members. This was followed by a short presentation on “World's Most Peculiar Aircrafts”, dealing with aircrafts one wouldn't normally see in daily life. This was then followed by a unique session, where the students were asked to let their imaginations fly and design an unconventional, yet aerodynamically stable and structurally feasible airplane on a sheet or paper, and were given the opportunity to discuss their wacky ideas with senior students. This was followed by an interactive session among students, their parents, and senior students on careers in Engineering in general and Aerospace in specific.

To sum up, we, as team members of Udaan, firmly believe that the various visits to schools and the summer camp in particular would definitely have been an enriching experience to the students and have inculcated thought of considering Aerospace as a viable career option, and we firmly hope such initiatives would produce more and more Aerospace engineers in the years to come, which can indeed go a long way in helping the country realise its dream of becoming a global Aerospace superpower, in the very near future!

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Student Exchange Programs Overseas education programs are always lucrative for the cultural exchange. Kartik Dalal tells us how's there's more than what meets the eye when it comes to Student Exchange Programs through his exchange past fall.

Ever wondered how enriching and exuberating it would be to get out of the shackles of a busy IIT Bombay life and experience an altogether new culture, a different academic exposure while making a host of new friends from around the world? A semester long Student Exchange Program with the renowned Purdue University turned out to be the perfect answer to the above cravings, for me at least.

Ranked four among the aeronautical schools across the world, Purdue undoubtedly had, in store, some quality academic stuff. While there was hardly any difference in the course contents and their layout, what stood different was the manner in which each course was conducted. Lectures were systematically conducted, supported by well crafted notes, presentations and; videos were shot whenever possible for later review. There were extensive office hours (4-6 hours a week) with professors for doubt solving and what surprised me was that students made full use of such interactions. Another striking difference was the evaluation pattern for each course. Significant weight age was allotted to regular assignments and end of semester projects, sometimes to the extent of 70%.

Students took interest in all such assignments and projects and sincerely worked to gain knowledge, purely out of interest in the field of study. Regular assignments kept the students at pace with what was taught in the class and this sustained their interest in the course.

Kartik Dalal is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay.

He took a semester exchange program with Purdue University, Indiana, USA in the odd-semester this year.

To give you an idea of how some of the courses were conducted, I wish to illustrate two of them as detailed below: Course AAE 451 Aircraft Design – This course involved designing, fabrication and test flying a model aircraft : The whole batch was divided into 4 groups of 11 students each. First 2 weeks were devoted towards teaching all the basics of the model to be engineered by the students. Next two months were devoted to evolve the design and meet the specifications. Once the design was ready, a budget was set and two weeks were allotted to build the model aircraft.

On the D day all the groups had to perform the experiment of flying and controlling their aircraft in air for 10 minutes.

Lessons learned and peer evaluation ended the course.

Course AAE418 NASA Zero Gravity Flight Experiments – 10 students were involved in designing an experiment that would participate in NASA's vomit comet competition. If selected, the experiment would be performed on flight the vomit comet in low gravity conditions achieved during parabolas. We designed an experiment to study the effects of bubble formations in reduced gravity. Apart from designing the experiment, each participating team had to carry out outreach work at the primary and middle school level. My team got selected in the competition and four members of the team will get the privilege to fly and perform the experiment in summer.

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The fact that I took a wide variety of hands-on courses, one involved designing, fabricating and eventually flying a model aircraft (AAE 451 for more details) and another designing an experiment for NASA's zero gravity flight experiment (AAE 418 for more details), spoke volumes of the highly exhaustive and flexible program structure. No doubt, the labs ran at full capacity even at midnights.

Wait! You won't end up being a nerd at Purdue. Students at Purdue follow a somewhat set time-table i.e. work from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon and party hard on weekends. In addition, Purdue boasts of 700 odd student run clubs not to mention the regular sports events that keep students rejuvenated throughout the week. A specific advantage of an exchange with Purdue or that matter any school (over any foreign internship) is the rich exchange culture they nurture. Around 150 students (even more in some schools like NUS) from all over the world successfully apply to the exchange program. Week long orientations prior to the start followed by weekly meetings during the semester ensure that one gets to know each and every exchange student. Today, I am proud to have made a friend who is currently interning with Airbus!

Cost wise, the complete program should not rob your pockets any more than Rs.2.5 lacs on the higher side. This includes spending on vacation outings and weekends parties.

During my semester stay I managed to learn and perform Salsa dance, try my hands at the basketball game for the first time in my life and had the opportunity to watch a couple of football matches. All in all, the program turned out to be a great life time experience for me. It was a healthy departure from the routines at IIT Bombay. For students who wish to pursue an MS program in future, such an exchange program offers a first-hand insight into the education culture and industrial prospects, apart from potential recommendations from foreign professors. I strongly recommend such an exchange to you all.

AIRCRAFT DESIGN LAB

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Kanpur Flight Lab The motive behind this article is to give an idea about the flight lab conducted at IIT Kanpur for those who wish to go through it. It also allows me to remember the great time we had there.

The drama started right from the train reservations. Multiple alarm clocks were kept ready to make sure that we were not a second late to book the tickets. But as usual, Indian Railways website crashed and when we were finally able to book the tickets, our waiting list number was well above 400. It did not come down below 100 even the day before our departure. But finally we managed to squeeze through and with 40 people on 16 berths, our journey started.

The flight laboratory is a unique national facility with three single engine airplanes: 1. Piper Super Cub - a two seater aircraft 2. Cessna Skylane - a four seater aircraft 3. Piper Saratoga - a six seater aircraft.

The flight lab runs courses in flight testing wherein students participate to collect, then analyze and evaluate performance and handling qualities of the airplanes. The flight lab is actively involved in the research towards parameter estimation from flight data. It also offers opportunities to observe routines involved in various phases of flight, e.g., take-off, climbing, landing, turning, etc. The flight lab also has several gliders and an active gliding center where students as well as any member of IIT community can become a member and aspire to reach the stage of getting his/her license to fly the gliders.

Chaitanya Halbe is a fourth year dual degree student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay. His research interests are in blade design.

Classes on flight mechanics were conducted in the morning. We also visited the Aerospace Engineering Department of IITK where some experiments on flow visualization and anemometry were demonstrated. The most interesting part was of course the flying. We did the experiments in batches of 6 on the Piper Saratoga aircraft. The experiment consisted of 3 parts, calculating the cruise and climb performance, static lateral-directional stability testing and calculating the stick fixed as well as the stick free neutral points and the maneuver points for the aircraft. The aim of the cruising experiment was to obtain the curves of power required against speed for standard weight and sea level conditions. From these curves, the curve for any weight and altitude combination can be drawn by suitable scaling. The aim of the climb performance experiment was to determine the maximum rates of climb, steepest angle of climb and the corresponding speeds at different altitudes. Maximum and minimum speeds, the speeds for maximum endurance and maximum range were also calculated. The stability tests were intended to demonstrate the principal symmetric and anti-symmetric dynamic modes of an aircraft. Flight modes like fugoid, steady side-slip, steady level turn and Dutch roll were considered. The zero-g maneuver was literally a hair-raising experience. The joy ride on the powered glider was also very enjoyable. But the main attraction was the flight with the unpowered glider. Many of us have travelled in jet planes, but the experience of soaring in air is truly unique and incomparable.

While the days were occupied with academic activities, we had evenings to explore Kanpur.

The nights were reserved for Cricket matches and card games. The overall experience was very good and worth the efforts. (Including food, although I'm sure IITK students will disagree)

PIPER SARATOGA

UNPOWERED GLIDER

LEISURE

Where, apart from your kitchen, would you find the following: Fenugreek, Oregano, Sesame, Chilly, pepper, Coriander, Saffron, Dill, Fennel, Cardamom, Rosemary, Thyme, Cinnamon, Anise, Tamarind, Clove, Mustard, and Basil.

X is a certified pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Australian Boeing 707-138 airliner. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his children. His 707 aircraft bears the marks of Qantas, as X acts as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flies. His $4.9 million estate in the Jumbolair subdivision in Ocala, Florida, is situated on Greystone Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to his front door. Who is X? Hint: “I got a threshold, Jules. I got a threshold for the abuse that I will take.”

A quote from the 1997 film Con Air, starring Nicholas Cage, John Malkovich and John Cusack: Define irony. Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash.

Name the band and the song.

Identify this Mira Nair's latest film, starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor

The term "X" is at times used to describe a person of higher than average intelligence.

Aerospace engineering has also been represented as the more "glittery" pinnacle of engineering. For example, the movie Apollo 13 depicts the ground team as a group of heroes in a Hollywood fashion glorifying the intelligence and competence of white shirt and tie professionals.

Also, the term “Its not Y” has come in 10th on an Oxford list of the top ten most irritating phrases used today.

What are X and Y? Yes, they are related.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

IDENTIFY

Name this Scottish scientist, famous for his work in the fields of electricity and thermodynamics.

Hint: He was the first UK scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords.

The _____________ Effect, is a phenomenon experienced by aircraft on the ground.

Aircraft on the ground have a natural pivoting point on an axis through the main landing gear contact points [disregarding the effects of toe in/toe out of the main gear]. As most of the side area of an aircraft will typically be behind this pivoting point, any crosswind will create a yawing moment tending to turn the nose of the aircraft into the wind.

It is not to be confused with directional stability, as experienced by aircraft in flight.

COMPILED BY

Identify the blacked out city..

Bharat Jakati is a fourth year student of Aerospace Engineering.

Siddharth Shanbhag is a second year student of the Department of the Metallurgical Engineering and Material Sciences.

CONTACT Rajat Chakravarty rajatc@aero.iitb.ac.in Editor, Airspace Department of Aerospace Engineering IIT Bombay

ARPIT MARU arpit@aero.iitb.ac.in General Secretary Department of Aerospace Engineering IIT Bombay