Aircraft Report - Role, Range, Payload, Design Features, and More

This is an opportunity to focus on one particular aircraft, so choose an aircraft- any aircraft within the scope of this class- and write about it. The sort of information to include is;

What is its role, range, payload, design features, power plant, type of construction, materials used in construction? Where is it built, how many are flying, and who operates them? What design features deal with stability, drag, operating cost, and emergency features?

What do I mean by the scope of this class? Something that we’ve discussed. It doesn’t have to be a Cirrus or Piper aircraft but notice that I am yet to go into detail on the SR71 or Concorde. Those types of airplanes will be covered in AVS 3060. A light business jet is the biggest I would like to see in your research. I’ve had AVS 1210 students attempt to explain systems and aerodynamics features of the SR71 and it rarely goes well! Most NASA experts have a tenuous grasp on those concepts at best and, believe me, as your instructor I can say that I am FAR from a NASA expert.

Don't just write out the pilot's operating handbook, do some research, there's plenty of information out there. Even if the characteristics caused the demise of the airplane (it’s a little out of scope for this paper but see the 737MAX), include it in the paper.  

Please make sure to submit it via a Word document in the dropbox titled, “Aircraft Report”

I am going to give you some tips to help:

• Review the APA content in the module. This will help you format the paper to the standard I expect.
• The writing center is a wonderful tool. I know it takes a good bit of effort to get over there but I can tell you first-hand that it is worth it.
• Just because the due date is doesn’t mean you have to wait until then to turn it in. If you want to meet with me a week or more ahead of the due date I am willing to help with it

Finally, I am going to give you a few tips as to what NOT to do. DO NOT:

• Come up short of the minimum. This include tricks like going to 13pt font, using 1.25” margins, leaving ¼ of a page at the end, embellishing the space between paragraphs. Believe me, after reading 50 that all look the same, if yours looks even the slightest bit different it is evident.
  
  
• Use contractions in a professional or academic paper. I get the irony of me using them through this entire paper but I’m not writing this for a grade! J

Hand the paper in without giving it a final proof read. I know this sounds obvious but you would be shocked at the number of points I have to deduct every semester because somebody didn’t capitalize a proper noun or misspelled a word. Microsoft Word is kind enough to do that kind of proof reading for you so utilize all of your tools. Probably my biggest pet peeve is receiving a paper with 10-20 of the squiggly red lines underneath a misspelled word.