A new trip down memory lane

Interweaving topical technology and historical data, researchers and students submitted the Wright Flyer to simulated wind tunnel testing using software from Pointwise.

Hoping to reach the next generation of aerospace engineers and scientists with an ongoing website as a virtual lab, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) sponsored a project known as Wright Again. Working closely with the High Performance Computing, Education, and Research Center (HPCERC) at the University of New Mexico and NASA Ames Research Center's Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Wright Again project directors Jani Macari Pallis, CEO, Cislunar Aerospace, Inc., and Karen Elinich, Director of Educational Technology, The Franklin Institute (TFI), began with the Wright brothers' first documented interest in powered flight as young children in the 1870s.

Via a Web-based curriculum developed by Pallis and TFI, students then followed the course of Wilbur and Orville's travails to the early technological disappointments in 1901 and culminating in the successful flight of December 17,1903. In the curriculum were topics such as aerodynamics, propulsion, control, and structural design.