Originally Posted by
jester_s1
To the OP: What grade are you in? And what is the actual situation? Is this going to be for a grade, or is it an enriching project as part of an after school club?
I ask because I'm a middle school engineering teacher. I design problem solving and design projects all year long for kids and teach them the fundamentals so they can be successful. I would never tell a group of high school students to try and design an airplane when they've never flown one. Aeronautics is a complicated science with a lot of variables working at the same time. Even if everyone in your group already knew model building techniques, your chances of producing a successful scratch design would be virtually zero due to all of the interrelated issues to deal with.
If the point is for the group to work together and get something in the air, take the advice above and build one of the classic trainers like the Kadet Sr. and then get a qualified flight instructor at a proper flying facility to train you.
We're college students studying aerospace engineering, I should've said that in the original post but I wrote it in a hurry.
We have all our calculations that back up our design and our different variables from our motors, I tried attaching a render of our design but I need to have 10 posts before I can do this.
We lack a lot of experience in the modeling and construction phase of this project, we really don't know if we want to use fiberglass or balsa wood. Our original thought was balsa wood would not be sturdy enough for the weight of our aircraft, but reading the replies on this thread has made us research more about balsa wood construction.
And yeah I completely agree with you about us having zero experience flying model planes...