Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?

What is the best way to decrease drag and increase fuel economy in aircraft?

• Blended-wing body
• Geared Turbofan Engine
• Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge "morphing wing" Technology

My best answer is the geared turbofan engine.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

To arrive at this answer I first had to understand how aircraft can become more fuel-efficient. Once I understood the aerodynamics and mechanics behind ways airplanes can become more fuel-efficient, I started encountering all of my answers. After I had discovered all of my answers, I narrowed it down to one through the simple idea of which one is the most practical and easy to apply. Geared turbofan engines were because all you have to do is replace current jet engines with these ones.

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

I did not encounter many problems. One problem I did have was finding a mentor in my field. A lot of aerospace engineers work for large companies like Northrop Grumman and Boeing and the things being worked on there are often in coordination with the military and government and, as a result, require lots of clearance and security making it impossible to mentor there. I resolved this by looking for mentors in similar engineering fields and have thus been able to get most of my mentorship done.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My two most significant sources would have to be the NASA Glenn Research Center fact pages and the Flying Engineer website. The NASA sources provided me with nearly all of my knowledge on aerodynamics and anything related to aircraft design and function, and, as a result, led to me better understanding why certain things would or would not answer my essential question. The Flying Engineer was very significant because they have many technical articles and their article on my best answer served as a large bank of information for understanding how it works and what it does and why it is so practical.