Wings #5 Danny Keltner

1. Summarize the new aviation technologies that emerged as a result of WWII.

There were many new aviation technologies that were created because of WWII.  Germany, during their time of desperation, decided to try new ideas and technologies to hopefully create a super plane/weapon that could aid them in the defeat of the allies.  So many of the inventions were as a result of Germany’s engineers.  They worked to create the P1101 but the allies discovered it before it could been flown. This had sweeping wings which means that these planes could alter their planes to meet certain conditions, making the planes more efficient (pg. 444).  This information of sweeping wings helped the Americans create the Bell X-5 with sweeping wings.  Germany also had an important factor in the creation of jet planes as a result of WWII.  The Allied troops also found the Horton Ho IX V3 which was a twin jet-powered flying plane that was only somewhat complete.  There were several other jets discovered, such as the Me 261, He 162, and the rocket-propelled Me 163 (pg. 443).  Germany also had created the, “world’s most advanced high-speed wind tunnel facility in the Hartz Mountains” (pg. 444).  The Germans also had a mass amount of information about aviation that would be used for later technological advancements.  There were also weapons that were created by Germany for air combat.  Germany created several different types of missiles that could be attack air or ground.      

5    5.)    How did the U.S. view the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik and what was the reaction?

When Sputnik was launched in 1957, Americans did not take it very well.  They viewed is as a, “technological Pearl Harbor” (pg. 485).  Since this was during the Cold War, Americans feared that Russians could use the technology to either spy on them or something even worst.  Dwight Eisenhower decided to try to influence Russia separate ballistic missiles and military space efforts, and use space as scientific objectives only.  Also, he wanted to have an open-sky agreement with Russia (pg. 485).  The result of Sputnik helped create NASA for the purpose of the nation’s civil space program.  NASA began to rise exponentially because of the American’s view of the “space race” against the Soviets.  Americans wanted to defeat the Soviets in that race desperately that they decided to help aid the funding of NASA.  In only five years NASA’s budget increased 1000 percent from 523.6 million to 5.25 billion $ in 1965 (pg. 485).  The billions of dollars that they received were given to several contractions and employees (pg. 486).  NASA also was able to create eight new centers in only the first decade of its life.  Sputnik created a lot of scare for the American people at the time, but it also motivated the United States to undergo more research on space aviation.  Later on, the Apollo missions were created and the America was able to put the first man on the moon on July 20^th, 1969.          

7   7.)    What effect did the invention of the computer have on aviation technology?

The invention of the computer had a very important factor in aviation technology.  The computer came into aviation when countries were having problems with flutter in the 1930s, which was vibration in the wings that could tear an airplane apart in mid-air.  There were so many complex calculations with flutter that even a large number of people could not do all of them (pg. 512).  So a German aviation research organization (the DVL) supported the work of an engineer named Konrad Zuse who was working on an experimental computer.  Then in WWII several engineers worked on fixing IBM punch-card tabulators.  Then ten out of the first nineteen computers were bought by different companies with an emphasis in aviation.  Computers, “gave birth to computational fluid dynamics” (pg. 512).  Computers were used to transform the mathematical data given by wind tunnels (through calculations) into visual images of fluid flow.  Computers also helped reshape the way airplanes were created.  Before, there were several draftsmen that would create many conceptual drawings of airplanes.  Also lofting changed, which was making sure that each line on the design was correct and that was tedious.  In 1961, an MIT student designed a software program for the purpose of advanced graphical processing.  This software started to replace drawing boards 2 years later.  The early 1980s also had the invention of CAD/CAM programs.  These programs offered the precision that was required for the aerospace industry and ended several industry traditions (like spending several hours on a drawing board) (pg. 514).  The CAD also performed all of the necessary calculations and created a three-dimensional image of any part of the plane that the engineer could observe (pg.514). Computers allowed engineers to quickly design airplanes in a more accurate way.