Hi again:

Some of you might know that some of our best universisties offer many of their courses online. That is, you can listen to the FULL lecture and/or download the entire course in video. You can download anything from Philosophy to Physics. It's incredible. As this is an R/C forum, I thought I would make everyone aware of a course titled "Aircraft Systems Engineering." It's mostly about NASA space shuttles, but it's nevertheless relevant, and you're hearing/seeing it from the guys who desinged our shuttle's aerodynamics! Below is the course description and the link. I hope you enjoy!


Course Highlights
This course was administrated by shuttle astronaut and MIT Professor Jeff Hoffman and Professor Aaron Cohen, who was the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project Manager. Guest speakers provide the majority of the content in video lectures, discussing topics such as system design, accident investigation, and the future of NASA's space mission.
Course Description
16.885J offers a holistic view of the aircraft as a system, covering: basic systems engineering; cost and weight estimation; basic aircraft performance; safety and reliability; lifecycle topics; aircraft subsystems; risk analysis and management; and system realization. Small student teams retrospectively analyze an existing aircraft covering: key design drivers and decisions; aircraft attributes and subsystems; and operational experience. Oral and written versions of the case study are delivered. For the Fall 2005 term, the class focuses on a systems engineering analysis of the Space Shuttle. It offers study of both design and operations of the shuttle, with frequent lectures by outside experts. Students choose specific shuttle systems for detailed analysis and develop new subsystem designs using state of the art technology.


http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Aeronautic...Home/index.htm


P.S. If you want to download the course videos, you'll notice that they are .rm files. Real Player will play these files.

I'm going to lock the thread down because it really isn't a RC related discussion. Yes member can benefit from knowing the theory of flight, but that is why RCU does have a [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_76/tt.htm]Aerodynamics[/link] forum. This would be the proper place for a discussion about this subject.

Thread locked.

Ken