Guest Lecture on ’Flight Mechanics’

The Department of Aeronautical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering of MVJ College of Engineering organized a Guest Lecture on Flight Mechanics, on 4^th March, 2023. The event started at 10.00 am at Rajalakshmi Seminar Hall. Around 288 students from the Aeronautical and Aerospace programmes participated in this event. The session started with an Inaugural Address by Prof. S. C. Gupta, HOD/AE/AS, MVJCE. He welcomed the Guest Speaker and the audience. During his talk, he highlighted the importance of Flight Mechanics for AE/AS students.

The Chief Guest, Shri. J. V Kamesh (OS & Scientist-H (Rtd.), ADA, Bangalore; Professor and Advisor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore) spoke about the concept of Flight Mechanics, the study of aerospace vehicles in motion and how to calculate the performance of an aircraft, the importance of aerodynamics and weight analysis and their research scope in the Aerospace industry.

Through his Lecture, Shri. Kamesh endeavoured to make students understand the principles of Flight Mechanics. He started with an introduction to Flight Mechanics. The field of Flight Mechanics deals with the study of an aircraft in motion. It is the branch of engineering that studies the motion of flight when acted upon by gravitational, aerodynamic, propulsive and other external forces. Such analysis frequently assumes that the aircraft is a rigid body, but its own elasticity may also be accounted for, leading to investigation of the aero-elastic behaviour of the aircraft. Flight Mechanics is the application of Newton’s Laws to the study of vehicle trajectories (performance), Stability and Aerodynamic Control.

Moving on, Shri. Kamesh dealt with topics like directional stability derivative, typical mission of aircraft, Aeroelasticity, Aircraft performance and Flight dynamics concepts. He explained that the term ‘stability’ characterizes the motion of an aeroplane when returning to its equilibrium position after it has been disturbed from it, without the pilot taking action. Aircraft control describes the response to actions taken by a pilot to induce and maintain a state of equilibrium, or to execute manoeuvres. Aircraft stability deals with the ability to keep an aircraft in the air in the chosen flight attitude. Aircraft control deals with the ability to change the flight direction and attitude of an aircraft. Both these issues must be gone into thoroughly, during the preliminary design process.

Shri. Kamesh also discussed about the mean aerodynamic chord and static margin, dynamic force and moment coefficients, axis system and standard nomenclature. He also addressed topics like phugoid Oscillation-longitudinal dynamic stability and its importance in the stability and control of an aircraft.

After the Guest Lecture, a Question-and-Answer session was conducted, where the Guest Speaker addressed the queries of the attendees. The session concluded with vote of thanks to the Guest Speaker and to the MVJCE management, Principal, and Vice Principal of MVJCE, for giving this opportunity to conduct this Guest Lecture on Flight Mechanics.

Outcome of the Event

The students understood about accelerated flight performance in Flight Mechanics. They got lot of inputs regarding the stability of aircraft. They understood concepts like the design mission of aircraft and aircraft performance, standard atmosphere, aerodynamic and propulsive forces, different speeds, and estimation methods of aircraft. Flight Mechanics is an important area in their future careers, and this Lecture has provided a strong foundation on this concept.