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My Projects
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My Story (So Far)
Early Days
From very early in my college career, I found my passion lied in the aero-performance side of aerospace engineering. As a freshman, I joined USC’s Design Build Fly club (the AeroDesign Team at USC) before classes even begun, and quickly found my place in the Aerodynamics, Stability & Control and Performance subteams. I developed a reputation for showing up to every single work and lab hours.
That same year, during winter break, I stumbled upon Dr. Raymer’s textbook - Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach. I had just completed my introductory aerospace engineering class, and was starting to get the hang of things in the AeroDesign Team, but was curious as to how full-scale aircraft were designed. How did engineers arrive at key geometric parameters such as wing area, takeoff thrust, and required maximum lift coefficient? How could one go from a blank sheet of paper to an airplane? How did that process even begin?
I read the book from front to back. I was bit by the bug: my newfound passion was aircraft design, and I loved it. I developed a new reputation at the AeroDesign Team: reading textbooks. I tried to read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Gudmundsson’s General Aviation Aircraft Design, Roskam’s Airplane Design series, Abbott and Doenhoff’s Theory of Wing Sections are notable examples.
During the spring, I entered the 2023 AIAA Individual Aircraft Design Competition and submitted a 93-page report detailing the design of an amphibian, short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft named AirSChooner. This work would go on to be awarded second place in the competition, a first for a USC freshman.
I also ran for and was elected the Aerodynamics, Stability & Control Lead in the AeroDesign Team. An exciting year awaited me….
Leadership and Education
A few exciting things happened my Sophomore year of college.
Most of my time was spent at the AeroDesign Team. I took an active role in the initial sizing work with my newfound knowledge from textbook sizing methods. Additionally, I developed a series of Python-based codes that changed the workflow of the Aero S&C position. From airfoil design codes to AVL/QPROP automation codes, I put a big emphasis on doing work that could be used for leads to follow.
I also took a particular interest in the educational/teaching side of things, which gave me a third and final reputation at the AeroDesign Team: Professor Sztajnbok. I put together a semester-long course named Basics of Aerospace, which I taught weekly. The course was designed to cover roughly the same content as USC’s introductory aerospace engineering course, and the slides were essentially a nice summary of Anderson’s Introduction to Flight. At the final lecture, a giveaway: the best prize was, of course, a copy of Dr. Raymer’s textbook!
The team’s work was well received by the AIAA: USC’s design report for the 2023-2024 Design Build Fly competition earned first place!
I also embarked on two new conceptual design projects. For our Flight Mechanics class, colleagues and I designed a replacement for the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. My main contributions were in the trade study codes and aerodynamic design. Our work culminated in a ~60 page design report.
Finally, I submitted an entry into the 2024 AIAA Individual Aircraft Design Competition, for the design of a hybrid-wing body aircraft, StratoSOL. The aircraft was designed for a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) mission, wherein aerosol particles are dispensed at high altitudes to increase the Earth’s albedo.
First Internship
Another piece of phenomenal news hit me during my sophomore year: I was given the opportunity to join the team at REGENT Craft in the summer of 2024.
The job could not have been a better fit: REGENT is designing and building Seagliders - electric, amphibian wing-in-ground effect craft. I had experience with electric aircraft in DBF, and had designed an amphibian airplane for the AIAA Design Competition. There was a cherry on top: I was hired as a Performance Engineering Intern, the role of my dreams (low-medium fidelity aero, conceptual design, and aircraft performance.)
This was a fantastic experience. My manager was phenomenal, the work was incredibly fun and, most importantly, I learned. A lot.
Looking Forward
My sophomore year marked the end of my time at the AeroDesign Team - the place I had, by far, spent most of my days in (and nights… many late nights…) A bittersweet end for sure: though I will miss the great friends and colleagues, fond memories, and great learnings from my DBF days, I left to pursue a challenge that I just can’t help but tackle, one that has consumed my interest for a while…
In 1976, not far from the desk where I sat at REGENT’s headquarters in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, Lt. Col. Joseph Zinno took off in a flying machine designed and built by himself and a few associates. The aircraft has one feature that would have caught the eye of the American citizen reading about this flight in the May 10 edition of The New Yorker: a bicycle was the centerpiece of the thin fuselage that sat in the middle of the cantilever wing monoplane. Zinno’s machine was a human-powered aircraft (HPA), flying under the power produced by his legs alone.
His was the first HPA flight in the United States. Just one year later, Paul McCready Jr.’s team would beat the first and second Kremer Prizes with the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross. Aviation enthusiasts and professionals had been trying to beat the prizes for some 20 years before Paul McCready swiftly and ingeniously beat them. In 1988, MIT’s Daedalus set the distance and endurance world records with the historic flight from Crete to Santorini, records that still stand to this day…
I am starting the Human-Powered Flight Research Team at USC (HPFRT), with the founding goal of beating the endurance world record of just under four hours. Keep posted for news and updates!