ND Aero Eng: Group 1, Mothership: Data Acquisition + Propeller Failure

University of Notre Dame Aerospace Engineering
Class of 2009

For their capstone design project, the senior class of aerospace engineering students design and build remote controlled aircraft. This year, the objective was slightly different than the design projects of years past: to design a remotely piloted airplane to carry a smaller remotely piloted airplane to a desired location, and then separate the carried airplane for a surveillance mission. The class was split in two groups, with each responsible for a complete mothership+daughtership system. All aircraft made use of an electrically-driven propeller for propulsion.

Our group's (Group 1) design had the daughtership's attachment point at the top of the mothership's fuselage. The mothership (The Flying Kangaroo) was designed with a low-mounted wing and an H-tail, and the daughtership (Joey) was designed with a high-mounted wing and a 'standard' tail.

This video shows the mothership in its second flight, during which flight data was to be acquired for analysis and comparison with predicted values. Unfortunately, the two-bladed propeller fractured midflight, breaking off roughly one third of the length of one of the blades. This imbalance about the rotation point initiated a severe vibration that damaged the motor mount, requiring an immediate landing. Luckily, our veteran pilot guided the aircraft to a safe landing.

The cause of the initial fracture is still unknown. Listen carefully at 2:09 in the video for the sound of the monokote aircraft skin vibrating audibly from over 100 feet away.

After repairing the engine mount (the only part of the structure that suffered damage), we attached the daughtership and went for the final, joined configuration flight. That flight is covered here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW68B3DnNWA

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• notre dame
• aerospace
• engineering
• nd
• aircraft
• mothership
• rc aircraft
• propeller
• monokote
• south bend rc
• group 1
• gps
• ame