Year 12 Engineering students Learn to Fly

As part of the HSC Engineering Studies course, our Year 12 students have been studying Aeronautical Engineering. In this course we have learnt how pioneers such as the Wright Brothers and Hargraves experimented with gliders and flying machines to develop the first aeroplanes.

Our Engineering Students also analyse the various theories of how an aeroplane flies and through practical activities experiment with those theories. Paper aeroplanes were a favourite, where the challenge to design and build a plane that could fly the longest over time and distance was set.

Through the case study of the highly manoeuvrable aerobatic RedBull racing plane, a challenge was set to engineer a new light weight propeller system. This engineering project realised our students investigating new materials such as carbon and polyamide fibre resins in composite materials to improve the performance of the plane.