SCIENCE DIY

SCIENCE

HYDRAULIC FLIGHT

SIMULATOR

Aviation trainer uses water to represent energy. By David Simpson

I volunteer with the U.S. Civil Air Patrol (the U.S. Air the cadets I taught, and this inspired me to build a Force Auxiliary) teaching aviation theory and practice more complete flight simulator that used colored to junior and senior high schoolers. Two fundamental water to represent energy. So I created my Hydraulic relationships I spend time on are the relationship Flight Simulator, which models the behavior of a fixed-between altitude, airspeed, and fuel, which represent wing aircraft in flight along the vertical or “pitch” axis. forms of energy, and the one between the “four What’s neat about the HFS is that not only does it forces”: lift, drag, thrust, and weight. I try to put myself explain the relationship between fuel, altitude, and in my students’ shoes, and if these were explained to airspeed in a clear, visual way, but it also models me in the usual way, I probably wouldn’t get it. loss of energy from drag, loss of lift from thinner air

One time I saw a desktop gadget filled with at higher altitudes, increased drag at high angles of colored liquids that see-saws back and forth, and it attack, and the complete loss of lift during a stall. reminded me of the exchange between airspeed You can use the tabletop simulator to demonstrate and altitude, aka kinetic and potential energy. a plane’s energy states through an entire flight,

I wanted to put a control stick on that gizmo to show including take-off, climb, cruise, dive, power dive,

Photography by David Simpson and Stan Rogacki

144 Make: Volume 12