Math and Science in Aviation

Tomorrow I will finally be flying for the first time for the project. This past week, I learned a lot about math and science in aviation. I will still be learning a lot more math and science throughout the project, but for now I will share what I have learned so far. 

Finding Slope and Climb/Descent: I learned that you can find the slope and rate of descent or climb of an aircraft. 

Scenario: A plane is descending 300 feet per mile at a speed of 120 mph. The plane has to reach a certain altitude to be able to start the final descent. 

1) The goal is to convert ft/mi to ft/min, so first we plug in 300 ft per mile. The slope of the descent is 3 degrees. (1 degree=100 ft/mi)

2) Now we put 300 ft/120 mph to begin converting. To start, divide 120 (speed) by 60 (minutes in an hour).

3) Next, we put 2 mi/1 min since 120 divided by 60 is 2. Then we multiply the top number by number of feet the plane descends every mile (300)

4) Finally, we figure out that the plane descends 600 feet every minute. 

This skill is important in aviation because if the plane in that scenario only had ten minutes to descend an unknown number of feet for whatever reason, you could figure out that the pilot has to descend 6,000 feet in that time span of ten minutes. (600 ft/1 min x 10 min=6,000 feet/10 min)