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ENGINEERING INVOLVED
I have a feeling that the reason not much engineering is involved in the
creation of kites is because the sport is still in its infantcy. I'm sure
that the Wright brothers didn't do computer simulations, wind tunnel testing,
or that such thing weren't done for many years. It was more efficient,
time-wise, to simply experiment and find out what worked and what didn't.
Of course, after a while, people wanted to push the envelope and eke out that
last bit of performance. At this point, mathematical simulation became
important.
It's the same situation with modern day kites. It is cheaper, faster, and
easier to simply make a bunch of kites and find out what works and what
doesn't. In the future, however, when kite-design has been pushed and
the limits are being reached, more and more engineering will be required to
get better performance.
Mike Gebis m-gebis@uiuc.edu
Subject: ENGINEERING INVOLVED
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 22:49:02 GMT
In article <BuJ6qx.4t1@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, mjg51721@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael James Gebis) writes:
|> I have a feeling that the reason not much engineering is involved in the
|> creation of kites is because the sport is still in its infantcy. I'm sure
|> that the Wright brothers didn't do computer simulations, wind tunnel testing,
The Wright brothers did extensive tests of small scale models in homemade
wind tunnels. In fact, I think this is what set them apart from most of
their predecessors who built large scale structures first (often on a whim)
and then saw what happened. Of course, with kites the final product is
probably the same size as many of the experimental models used in early
aviation, many of which were kites. (Note: The Wright brothers' wind tunnels were very small (smaller than most kites): ~1 or 2 feet across, maybe.)
This series of articles reminds me of something that happened a few years ago.
I was in a park, talking to a guy flying a delta. Another guy walked
up and was intrigued with the kite. The discussion turned to how the kite was
designed (size and shape of the keel, wingspan, etc.). They were sure that
it must have been designed by an engineer. I was never able to convince them
that at best it was probably trial and error or it just happened to work well
the first time. I didn't bother to "pull rank" and tell them about those
pieces of paper I have on the wall (actually under a pile somewhere) that
say aeronautical engineering on them [this statement meant to be read
with a certain amount of unintended arrogance, like a joke :-) ].
- SCH
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