Hello and welcome.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

This is the first post for my straight as an Aero blog. For this inaugural post I will give a brief description and discuss some topics that I find interesting. I hope anybody that reads this also finds something to take away. Or at least causes some thought, no matter how deep. Most future posts will be about my journey as a non-traditional student studying aeronautical engineering. I am defining non-traditional as a student that did not go directly into college after high school. I returned to college at the young age of 29 and with the help of my wife and two children I will complete this second stage of education in the spring of 2013. Although my journey is three quarters of the way complete, I feel this last year will be the most important year of my education yet. From time to time I will probably post about stuff that will not be directly related to aeronautical engineering, but I am sure that it will be related to my experience in college as I transition back to the working world. That will be all of the bio crap for now.

This week’s aerospace news (TWAN):

It may not be news to you but the fanwing sure grabbed by attention. I would take a stab at explaining it for you but I think linking to fanwing.com is better. I am an officer with my university's AIAA student chapter and I think this RC model is very interesting. Any new and unusual aircraft or spacecraft configuration will hopefully catch my eyes and I will show you here.

The testing of HIAD or Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator by NASA:

HIAD is a new device for atmospheric entries that is pushing the limits with both thermal and structural loads. Click here for NASA's HIAD project web page. I will be following this one for sure.

There are many more interesting aerospace news stories but I will leave this first post short and also mention that I can’t wait for Curiosity's landing.