Flight Dynamics

The study of aircraft flight dynamics is a pre-requisite to the study of automatic flight control systems. For these final year / final semester students, this class gives them the chance to study the behavior of aircraft in flight by mathematical modelling its dynamics. After automatic flight control systems, this subject is perhaps the most challenging to teach. Heavy with mathematics, the challenge has always been to maintain the students focus ( for 3 hours straight per week! ) when deriving the mathematical model of aircraft, whilst keeping the discussion lively ! Never the less, the challenge appeared to have been tackled rather well. Students find the course exciting and the results after 5 weeks into the course from the first test, Test 1, showed an average marks of 90%. Part of the reason why students could relate to the aircraft performance during this class is due to the use of flight simulator. I have also invited some of these students to fly with me in Cessna 172 to give them better appreciation of the flight dynamics of an aircraft.