MAE1041: Introduction to Aerospace Engineering

The first assignment was a lab on boundary layers using the small wind tunnel engines. I though this lab was poorly organized, rushed and there was not enough explanation of what was going on and why things were happening. After the demonstrator practically did everything for you, while leaving your group their wondering what was going on, we had to write a fairly substantial lab report on it...

The second assignment was a much better one, we had to design a paper airplane (It could be made of as many pieces of A4 paper and sticky tape as you want) that would fly as far as possible, from a height of 6 meters with a gentle gliding throw. We then had to write a report on our design, making reference to important design aspects of aircraft wings and aerodynamics, and how this affected the flight path and results.

These were worth a combined total of 20%. There was a weekly 2 hour tutorial session where you sat down and did a problem set. You either get a mark of 0, 1 or 2. These counted for another 10%. I wasn't very pleased that no solutions were posted on Moodle for these until literally the days leading up to the exam. Solutions would have helped a lot if they were posted earlier, if you wanted solutions you had to go to the tutors and look at them yourself - you weren't aloud to take a copy for some reason...

Overall I did not enjoy this unit at all. Although I did like the stuff we were learning - particularly aerodynamics - the way it was presented to us and they way the unit was run was not good in my opinion. Like I said above, I did not really feel like I was actually doing much problem solving most of the time, just memorizing where and how to use the 50+ formulas they gave us. It was not fun to do this.
A major problem I found was the huge amount of content (IMO) combined with the broadness of it. We covered so many different topics which were not really at all connected (At least in the amount of depth we went into them they were not), and thus you could not really link things together, nor go into much detail into anything because there wasn't enough time. But I guess thats what you would expect with a unit called 'introduction to....'

Hugh Blackburn took the whole unit. Personally I did not find Hugh's teaching style to work for me. I certainly enjoyed his sense of humor, but it felt as if he assumed everyone in the class was a genius, and thus did not explain a lot of things in as much detail as I would have liked. I felt like a lot of things went over my head in lectures, and so I heavily relied on the textbook.

For me, the lecture notes were worthless. They were way too brief and did not explain how things work, they just had a lot of formulas and a few sentences here and there. But reading through them, it felt like all I was doing was trying to memories 50+ formulas and 100+ definitions, while not really understand that much.

Yes, and solutions. I believe about 4 or 5.

2 Out of 5

No.

The prescribed textbook is 'Flight Physics'. It used to be 'Introduction to flight' by John Anderson, but Hugh changed it because he believes it explains the stuff we do later in the unit better. I had both textbooks and, in my opinion, Anderson's textbook is much better than 'Flight Physics', and I highly recommend it. It has Q's & A's, where as Flight Physics does not, it gives a much smoother transition between topics and is easier to understand.

Quite heavy, you will probably need to do a fair bit of study to follow the lectures. There is a very large amount of content compared to my other first year subjects - MTH1035, PHS1011.

2013, semester 1

10% BL Lab, 10% Paper Plane Project, 10% tutes/problem solving classes, 70% 3hr exam

Overall I found this unit interesting, although at some points it was quite dry, you go through a few derivations that are pulled nearly out of no where, and be prepared for a couple of formulas a lecture (they all add up, around 50 on the formula sheet). There were some "interesting" moments (watching birdstrike videos and turbine blade tests come to mind), and Prof Blackburn does have a sense of humor (unlike some lecturers).

If you can do the questions in the 2hr problem solving class/tute each week, (which is basically free marks if you get all the questions done or hang around - worth 10%) then you should be able to do ok, as the exam is similar to the tute questions and past exam questions (one of them was off the 2010 exam with the numbers changed around). 50% of the exam was on aircraft performance, 30% of the rest of the areas of study (as problems) and 20% on theory (based on the marking scheme for previous papers).

The boundary layer lab is easy to score high in if you know your stuff, while the paper plane project turned out to be quite difficult, making the plane fly in a straight line was the key. You get a couple of weeks notice for it, the goal is to make a paper plane fly 40m from a launching height of 8m using only a glide throw (i.e. you can't throw it hard). This is done in the sports rec center at some stage).
As this is "into to aerospace" you touch on a fair few areas, but don't go into great detail in some, this is done to be given just a general idea of the topic before building on it in later years. Although it does leave you wondering at some points, if you have time you can fill in the gaps there yourself.

Hugh Blackburn

Back to 2005 (although the course changed, so really not all the stuff on 2009 and back is relevant).

4 Out of 5

Not Recorded

Prescribed: Flight Physics: Introduction to Disciplines & Technology of Aircraft Flight, Recommended: Introduction to Flight 7ed. The prescribed textbook is ok to brush up on theory and to refer to in Lab reports and such, while the recommended book has a few practice questions that are relevant, but isn't really needed unless you want to go and do further questions (although not all of them are relevant).

3x1 hour lectures a week, 1 Boundary Layer Lab, 1 Paper Plane Project, 1 2hr Problem Solving Class a week

Sem 1 2012

85 HD