How is an aircraft propulsion system like a stack of pancakes?

摘要

At the eagle flight research center of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, a group of graduate and undergraduate students are working a problem that aeronautical engineers the world over would like to solve: how to make an airplane go far and fast without being a noisy, polluting gas guzzler. And when I say working a problem, I mean working a problem. Master's degree candidate Tianyuan 'Tony" Zhao, who graduated last year from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering and computational math, says the center emphasizes hands-on learning, "like soldering circuits for test equipment," he says. "We hadn't learned how to do that in a classroom."