ESA 366 FLIGHT PERFORMANCE

PURAWIN SUBRAMANIAM
125211 G-Factor

Reflective Journal 1
I have been assigned to do a Team project of constructing and evaluating the flight performance of
rubber-band powered free-flight indoor plane. First of foremost, let me introduce my team to you.
G-Factor, name of our group, consists of 4 members and led by Yiap Joo Zheng. At first, when Dr.
Zulfaa Kaasim introduced this team project to us, we had some ideas about indoor plane in our
mind, since my groups members and I have joined AEROFAIR 2015 & 2016 earlier. We could see
roughly what indoor plane is about and the understanding as well. Yet, theoretically we were not
strong enough to perform the fabrication process. Therefore, before we started the fabrication
process, we decided to do some research on indoor plane to strengthen our theoretical
understanding. Unfortunately, we couldnt find for any journals or publications on indoor plane. This
was our challenge at the first stage. We also found that generally, indoor plane is known as rubber
band powered aircraft in the internet. Therefore, we started looking for journals on that subject.
Yes, we could find but those research materials were not convincing or satisfying us. We even
started looking on Youtube and any blogspots, eventually with all the findings we believe we could
proceed to the next stage of the project which is task distribution. We spent a little bit more time for
the task distribution since this process could make a better progress on the project and everyone is
the team will understand their working scope and the timeline. For a graphical approach, we made a
Gantt chart for a better understand on task distribution.
As the next move, the leader, Yiap said to run a project we will definitely need some objectives
therefore, we will have a clear idea on what we want to achieve. Each of us started to shoot as many
objectives that we feel is relevant to the project and it is realistic to achieve under limited resources
circumstances. Because we believe, with limited resources in the surroundings we could push
ourselves towards the breaking point to gain the knowledge in this project. Lots of aerodynamics
characteristics have to be concerned in order to determine the performance of the indoor plane.
Therefore, we set our objectives as to study the performance of indoor plane at two stages which
are 1) Cruising at Constant Velocity and (2) Climbing Steadily and Without Acceleration. Even
though, our team members are our course mates, we find it hard to discuss about the project in the
class or during the break period. Therefore, we decided to set a day to have our meetings to update
and put a to-do list for upcoming tasks. We also created a Whatsapp group, to ease our
communication, where we can update ourselves on the project or ask any questions directly to the
team members simultaneously. Our team leader, will consistently remind us our task day-to-day in
the Whatsapp group. I as a member of the group, have contributed my best to the team. One of the
things that I would like stress here is that I learned the flow simulation on Solidworks on my own, so
that I could help my team to analyse the flow on indoor plane in order enhance the performance of
the flight. By the way, the flow simulation was not added on our first progress presentation but will
be added in our final presentation. This is because, I took a longer time to learn the flow simulation
on Solidworks. I think, personally I should have started learning the flow simulation or CFD earlier so
that it would have been added in our first progress presentation. Therefore, this aspect could be
improved to help myself and the team better to perform better.
In the recent progress presentation, I was supposed to show the flow simulation video on the indoor
plane so that the audience will have better view on observing the behaviour of the flow.
Unfortunately, due to certain reasons we couldnt add it in our progress presentation. Therefore, I
didnt present on the day since my part was not there. Anyway, I was helping out my friends to
adjust and re-edit the slides to be parallel with the lecturers expectations. My team was the third to
present on the day and I would say my team did a good job since we took a few hours to rehearse

November 13, 2016

ESA 366 FLIGHT PERFORMANCE

PURAWIN SUBRAMANIAM
125211 G-Factor
the presentation among ourselves. Practise makes perfect. We were aware of the questions and
answers session after the presentation from the lecturer. Therefore, we put a list on the expected
Q&A that will be thrown to us. Basically, we were prepared to counter any questions during
presentation day. Anyhow, there were some comments from the lecturer about our presentation.
He said we should have stated the assumptions we made and the reason as well. Next, he said to
avoid unnecessary items in the slides which distracts the audience. Therefore, we noted down all the
comments from him and will improve them on the presentation. From this presentation, I learned
that, a great presentation doesnt occur in a single day, but will acquire a few trials and some
modifications according to the needs, so the message will be transferred in an appropriate and
simple way.
There is a reason why we want to have this project in our Flight Performance class. This project helps
the students to understand the content of the subject by witnessing the performance of the indoor
plane. Why indoor plane? Why not some other planes that exist on earth? This is because, indoor
plane is easy to fabricate, in a small scale, not costly, and the most important is easy to observe the
performance of the flight from point A to B. In Flight Performance, we do have a few types of flight
path. For example, the steady flight, climbing with acceleration, banking with constant velocity and
etc. So this hands-on project helps us to observe the flight performance and then visualize the forces
acting on the indoor plane. I personally think our team should have done more than one design, like
different wing design and tail to witness the flight performance on every design. My aim for the
project, to study and make research more on this chapter. This is because, the Wright Brothers built
a small scale indoor plane (like what we did) before they built the bigger scale prototype. Which
means, we could learn more from this indoor plane, perhaps this could lead to a breakthrough in the
aviation history. I hope I can build a bigger scale of the indoor plane with some modification on it.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Zulfaa Kaasim, our lecturer for Flight Performance
ESA 366, for the modification you have done in this subject. Previously, the seniors told me the class
is full of Matlab coding, which is more computational and the students can hardly visualize what is
occurring during the flight. The idea of bringing in indoor plane in the subject is a great and smart
move. This made our class to have more fun and we learned together as a team during the
fabrication of the indoor plane. Thank you again!!

Practice without theory is more valuable than a theory without practice

-Marcus Quintilianus-

No battle can be won in the study, and theory without practice is dead
-Alexander Suvorov-

November 13, 2016