EVIDENCE OF LEARNING #7 

 
TYPE OF ASSESSMENT: R
​ esearch Assessment 

DATE: ​March 29, 2019 

 
SUBJECT: A ​ erospace Engineering 
 
CITATION: 
 
Aircraft Basic Construction. (2000). [pdf] Pensacola: Center for Naval Aviation 
Technical Training, pp.1-10. 29 Mar. 2019 
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~mohite/Basic_construction.pdf 
 
 
ANALYSIS:  
 
As part of my original work, I needed to be able to identify the basic construction 
of an aircraft which is what the “Chapter 4” PDF I found was in regards to. 
When glimpsing over its contents, I saw sub-headings addressing structural 
stress, construction materials, and different parts of an aircraft- all topics that I 
have already encountered, but have had difficulty with understanding. For this 
reason, I chose to thoroughly read and annotate the chapter in order to be able 
to get a better understanding of the basic topics it addressed. 
 
With my highlighter in hand, I got ready to begin reading it when I realized from 
just the introduction that the entire chapter was about naval aircraft. This caused 
me to skim through the rest of the pages to see if its contents could only be 
applied to naval aircraft, but found many of the topics familiar. This realization 
became something I decided to keep in the back of my mind because any 
specifications made by the text might be only true for naval aircrafts. However, I 
decided to still read the chapter to see if any of the specifications it made 
interested me since I’ve never explicitly considered naval aircraft. A documentary 
I’d watched about the so-called battle of the x-planes between Boeing and 
Lockheed Martin informed me that a modern consideration being made is to 
design military aircrafts to be compatible for navy, airforce, and army needs. But I 
know from my general knowledge that naval aircrafts have to be adaptable in 
different environments (carriers, water, etc), and therefore have different 
considerations that need to be made in their construction. 
 
One of the first topics the chapter discusses is about structural stress: the main 
learning deficit I had that inhibited me from progressing on my project. After 
reading the text, I know have a clearer understanding of how the different types 
of stress act on an aircraft and what causes them. Additionally, my annotations 
can be referred back to in case I need to refresh any specifics. The chapter also 
provides diagrams that proved really useful in thoroughly understanding the 
concepts it explains which I can also refer back to in case I need to.  
 
The materials subsection is where I believe when the chapter was published 
affected the text’s relevance to current aircraft. While the metallic materials 
discussed are still the leading materials in the aerospace industry, the text didn’t 
provide as lengthy of a discussion about non-metallic materials such as 
composites and carbon fibre as I hoped it would. However, from the chapter I 
still learned about alloys and what aspects of the metals make them apt for 
aircraft construction. I also learned that an important consideration when 
choosing material is its strength-to-weight ratio. Aerospace engineers need to 
be able to balance these two characteristics because a heavy aircraft may not be 
able to support itself. Heavy materials are usually the stronger ones which also 
can’t be something sacrificed because an aircraft needs to be able to withstand 
flying and static structural stresses. Sometimes, this forces engineers to make 
compensations, but materials that do offer high strength-to-weight ratios do 
exist. This analysis about materials is relevant to my project because I need to 
consider the material that my model Cessna 172 is made out since material 
contributes to the weight. Weight is an important value in the calculations I run 
as a part of my project as well as specific material identity values. Reading into 
aluminum, the most widely used metal in modern aircraft constructions, I’ve 
learned more about its characteristics which is something I can rely on as 
background knowledge as I research more into it for my project.  
 
The main attraction for me in the chapter was the section about wing 
construction. When beginning the processes of analyzing the model wings of 
the Cessna, I didn’t know any basic terms such as spar or ribs. These were terms 
my mentor, Mr. Marks used to address different parts of the construction, and I 
wasn’t able to clearly understand because of my unfamiliarity with the terms. 
After reading the text, I received a more developed understanding of the form 
and shape of spars and ribs and what they help the design achieve. Now I know 
that spars are the main structural member of the wings and that the ribs 
maintain the airfoil shape while also serving to transfer loads the aircraft 
experiences from the skin to the spars. Now I will be able to take this into 
consideration as I go into the geometric designing of my own structure.