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General Studies CS20 The Science, History, and Literature of Flight UCSB College of Creative Studies Spring 2001

Announcements  |   Reading assignments for each class  |   Web links for each class  |   Textbooks

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INSTRUCTOR: Roger Freedman, airboy@physics.ucsb.edu, 893-2345

CLASS TIME: Fridays 10:00-12:50, Building 494 (CCS) Room 143

OFFICE HOURS: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:30-3:00, Broida Hall Room 6215

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• Field trip to the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica on Friday, May 11 (http://www.museumofflying.com/). We'll meet at the CCS building (on the west side, next to the Old Little Theatre and opposite the UCen) at 9:00 AM on Friday, May 11. This will be an all-day trip. You'll be back in time for dinner, but make sure that you bring money for lunch (about $10) as well as for admission to the museum ($7).
• Term papers: Here (at long last) are some term paper ideas. I'm happy to help you refine any of these (or any other ideas that you might have) and to provide suggestions for information sources.
  The term paper is to be 12-15 printed pages. It will be due on Thursday, June 8, 2001 (the last day of classes).
  • Attempts at powered, heavier-than-air flight before the Wright Brothers
  • The development of engines for aircraft
  • Women in aviation (including the WASPs, the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II)
  • African-Americans in aviation (including the Tuskeegee Airmen of World War II)
  • The influence of aviation on art, or music, or popular culture
  • Important individuals in the history of aviation such as Glen Curtiss (pilot, aircraft builder, US), Glenn L. Martin (aircraft builder, US), Donald Douglas (aircraft builder, US), William Boeing (aircraft builder, US), Geoffrey de Havilland (aircraft builder, UK), Amelia Earhart (pilot, US), or Juan Trippe (airline president, US)
  • The role of the strategic bomber in World War II --- was it a success?
  • Elmer Sperry (inventor of the autopilot) and the evolution of instrument flying
  • The evolution of the airline industry in the US
  • The science of supersonic flight
  • Aviation literature (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Beryl Markham, Ernest K. Gann)
  • Economics of wartime aviation production (B-29, etc.)
  • Evolution of airline safety --- famous accidents and how they led to safer flight
  • Airline deregulation --- a success?

The Boeing B-17 bomber "Aluminum Overcast" will be visiting Santa Barbara Tuesday, April 24, through Thursday, April 26. We will visit the aircraft on Wednesday, April 25. Please meet on the west side of the CCS Building (the side facing the UCen) at 2:00 PM on Wednesday. For more information about the aircraft, visit the "Aluminum Overcast" web site.

READING ASSIGNMENTS:

• For Friday, May 11:
  • Lopez, Smithsonian Guides: Aviation, pages 106-139
  • Gann, Fate Is the Hunter, second half
  • For other recommended readings, see below under "Web Links"


• For Friday, May 4:
  • Lopez, Smithsonian Guides: Aviation, pages 88-105
  • Tennekes, The Simple Science of Flight, Chapter 4 (pages 65-90)
  • Gann, Fate Is the Hunter, first half
  • For other recommended readings, see below under "Web Links"


• For Friday, April 27:
  • Lopez, Smithsonian Guides: Aviation, pages 62-105
  • Tennekes, The Simple Science of Flight, Chapter 2 (pages 21-40)
  • Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis, Part II (pages 181-end)
  • For other recommended readings, see below under "Web Links"


• For Friday, April 20:
  • Lopez, Smithsonian Guides: Aviation, pages 1-61
  • Tennekes, The Simple Science of Flight, Chapter 1 (pages 1-20)
  • Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis, Part I (pages 1-178)
  • For other recommended readings, see below under "Web Links"

WEB LINKS:

• General links:
  • The Beginner's Guide to Aeronautics --- basic answers to the question "How does an airplane fly?"
  • The National Air and Space Museum
  • The Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture Museum
  • The American Airpower Heritage Museum
  • Aviation History magazine
  • Flight Journal magazine
  • Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-in --- Watch World War II pilot training films on the Web (requires the free RealPlayer)
  • More aviation history links from Yahoo!
• Some links to innovative aircraft design and soaring, courtesy of Derek Piasecki:
  • Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites (very cool, very non-traditional aircraft). The "What we do" section isÊinteresting for the engineering aspects, and the "Projects" section has descriptions and photos of their aircraft, along with some of the specific technical issues overcome for each project. For interviews with and profiles of Rutan, see http://www.airspacemag.com/asm/web/twd/Rutan.html and http://www.avweb.com/articles/profiles/brutan/. For QuickTime VR views of various Rutan planes (and many others), see http://www.airspacemag.com/ASM/web/site/QTVR/RutanPlanes.html and http://popularmechanics.com/popmech/sci/9611STTRAP.html
  • The Moller vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (which may fly someday)
  • Freewing (in which the wing is independent from the fuselage and the angle of attack sets itself)
  • The Soaring Society of America
  • Gliding Magazine


• For Friday, March 27:
  • The Spirit of St. Louis at the National Air and Space Museum
  • Lindbergh --- an extensive web site from the PBS series "The American Experience"
  • Listen to a recording of Lindbergh and President Calvin Coolidge on Lindbergh's return to the United States (requires the free RealPlayer)
  • Issues of the day --- 1927 (editorialist Walter Lippman writing in the Atlantic Monthly)
  • "Keep the Customer Dissatisfied" --- a 1929 essay on progress by Charles Kettering, director of the research laboratories at General Motors
  • Images and audio from popular culture of the 1920s, from authentichistory.com
  • Popular dance steps of the 1920s and 1930s, including the "Lindy Hop"
  • About B. F. Mahoney, owner of Ryan Airlines in 1927
  • Lindbergh's aircraft during barnstorming and air mail days:
    • The Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" --- information from the USAF Museum, Fiddlers Green, and the Owls Head Aviation Museum.
    • The first U. S. airmail postage stamps --- and how a printing error produced the "Inverted Jenny", the most famous U. S. stamp of all
    • The De Havilland DH-4 --- information from the USAF Museum and the National Air and Space Museum
  • The Airshow --- an extensive web site about the Golden Age of aviation


• For Friday, March 20:
  • The Great War: 80 Years On --- an extensive web site created by the BBC on the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
  • Music of the Great War --- Sing-along MIDI recordings of popular songs of the First World War, as well as period recordings.
  • Patriotic Warfare: The Music of World War I --- period recordings (requires Windows Media Player, available for both Macintosh and Windows).
  • Songs Popular During the First World War (in English and French), from Veterans Affairs Canada
  • Alcock and Brown --- the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.


• For Friday, March 6:
  • First Flight --- a web site with extensive Wright Brothers history, including a downloadable flight simulator with the flight characteristics of the Wright's 1903 airplane.
  • "How We Made the First Flight" by Orville Wright, with copious period photographs
  • Photographs and Movies about the Invention of the Airplane --- an extensive collection of QuickTime movies from the earliest days of powered flight
  • The Wright 1903 Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum
  • The "Early Years" Gallery at the U. S. Air Force Museum (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio)
  • "Homage to Bleriot" by Robert Delauney
  • The complete text of H. G. Wells's "The War in the Air" (1908)

TEXTBOOKS:

	The Simple Science of Flight by Henk Tennekes Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262700654
	Aviation : A Smithsonian Guide by Donald S. Lopez Publisher: Hungry Minds, Inc. ISBN: 002860041X
	The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society ISBN: 087351288X
	Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann Publisher: Touchstone Books ISBN: 0671636030
	Stranger to the Ground by Richard Bach Publisher: Dell Books ISBN: 0440206588

Last updated 2001 May 9