Constructing General Aviation Aircraft In The Aerospace Lab Courses

Luis Obispo, is in the midst of a dynamic experiment to revitalize its "hands on" approach to undergraduate engineering education by introducing aircraft manufacturing and fabrication "kits" into its laboratory curriculum. The challenges and opportunities are many, and the most important are discussed in this paper. They include the enormous difficulty of establishing a recurring lab syllabus for such an endeavor, combined with the lack of faculty expertise in aircraft fabrication that may exist in the department. Traditional projects and grades are also a problem, since failure or sub-standard work to meet any standard for flight is not acceptable. Adequate lab space, resources, specialty tools, and expertise in blueprint analysis are also difficult challenges to meet, especially for the large number of inexperienced students who come into this course at every offering.