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Mathematics in aircraft design

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FrankenWompus

Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2020
Messages
12
I did a quick search, but didn't come up with anything. I did find the thread with books and resources, but it didn't answer my question, so here it goes

Like many here I suspect, I have dreams of designing and building my own airplane. I've got some criteria I'd like to meet, and I plan to build from plans or a kit (or both) before tackling my own design... but it's never too early to start the design process. I've designed and built several of my own RC aircraft, but that's been mostly using the tried and true German standard of Gudenuff and eyeballed aerodynamics. I have designed a few RC parts with Fusion360 and seen them through to the real world with a 3d printer, but they've never involved any real math-based strength assurances that they'll work. Essentially they're just overbuilt and they do the trick.

I'm not ashamed to say that math was never my strong suit in High School. I did go back to college in my mid 20's and got through to Calculus pretty well, but Calc 2 had my number and that was that. I've looked though a few books on design and they all have a bit (or a lot) of math in them. Maybe it's because it's been 10 years since I've looked at an equation, but it looks a bit foreign to me.

I guess my question is, how steep of a learning curve do I have to get up? What level of math competency is enough to design an aircraft that is safe and isn't going to have a rapid unplanned disassembly? I don't need the equations themselves, but what kind of math should I be comfortable with before I start to tackle this? I'd hate to get deep into it, put some numbers on paper, and figure out my wing won't be strong enough, or big enough, or something.

Thank you in advance!
 
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