Seven videos are up on airplane stability! Ever wonder why aiplanes have stabilizers on the aft of the tail? How do they work? Why are they there? Where does the center of gravity of the aircraft relative to the wings need to be in order for the stabilizers to work? By the end of this series, even if you’re not designing an airplane e.g. for a competition like SAE Aero Design, you’ll understand why for instance foam gliders don’t fly straight until you put the plastic weight clip on their nose and the stabilizers on the tail.

In this series, we focus on pitch stability in typical SAE Aero Design and Design/Build/Fly aircraft, using SOLIDWORKS for airplane model examples. The first 5 videos go into a qualitative understanding of pitch stability, starting from where we left off in the series on airfoils. The 6th and beyond add a layer of quantification for a deeper understanding of how CG and wing positioning affect stability for typical configurations. The 7th video is on a typical forward CG case. Look out for the next videos on aft CG cases, as well as qualitative discussion about other aspects of stability such as yaw, roll, coupled modes, and other configurations.

Check out the playlist below (the playlist button is in the top right of the video preview frame)