MAAA Wingspan - Quarterly Magazine

FEBRUARY WING SPAN MAAALogo. 19 In an encouraging step forward for our potential future aeromodelling pilots, the Year 11 Aerospace Studies class at Atherton State High School enthusiastically completed an aeroplanemodelling task that involved building rubber powered Delta Darts, provided by the MAAA. This was only part of themodel building exercise, as the students were then required to use a selection of materials to create another model with improved performance- with the main objective of increasing the flight duration of their models. “The students thoroughly enjoyed the task. The Delta Darts were relatively straight-forward to build with easy-to- follow instructions and good quality materials,” said Senior Teacher of Mathematics and Aerospace, Jon Collins. Test flying their models in the school hall, the students timed each flight with different numbers of turns of the rubber motor each time. “They were then required to design their ownmodel and either use similar materials to the Delta Dart or use some other materials such as tissue paper, polystyrene, cling-wrap and so forth. These newmodels were test flown and comparison data with the Delta Dart was created,” continued Jon. Jon emphasises that the use of the Delta Dart kits was both educational and fun, as his students learnt a lot about aerodynamics and construction techniques. “I would like to thank the MAAA for their kind donation of the Delta Dart kits and their continued support of students of aerospace,” he said. A DELTA DARTS BUILDING SCHOOL EXERCISE INSTALLS MODEL ENTHUSIASM FOR BUDDING PILOTS STUDENTS OF AEROSPACE