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Greg Buchan '11 works with Professor Louis Hayden
Gregory Buchan ’11 (Chappaqua, N.Y.) has always been interested in flying. He’s been designing, building, and flying model aircraft his whole life and is even a Federal Aviation Administration student pilot.
His love of aviation was a key factor in choosing to attend Lafayette as he is now project manager for the College’s Aero Design team, which is preparing for this year’s Aero-Design East Competition April 29-May 1 in Marietta, Georgia.
Sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and Lockheed Martin, the competition includes 75 collegiate student teams from around the world, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, India, Poland, Venezuela, Mexico, and Egypt.
Morgan Callahan '11
The team has been designing and building its airplane to SAE specifications over the course of the school year. The project is a mechanical engineering senior design capstone course taught by Louis Hayden, visiting part-time instructor of mechanical engineering.
Some of the rules include that the aircraft must be designed so that the length, wingspan, and height when added together must be less than 225 inches, it must be able to take off in 200 feet or less and land in under 400 feet, and it must be able to make one full circle for a flight. The team can also receive points for carrying higher payloads and for accurately predicting the maximum payload that their plane can carry. All of these requirements factor into the team’s total score which determines the rankings at the competition.
Andreas Wallner '11
At the competition, the team must also give a technical presentation and design a one minute presentation of how one team member can take the aircraft from a flight ready, payload removed configuration to a flight ready, payload secured configuration.
As project manager, Buchan has worked to manage the team dynamic and structure, delegated tasks, kept communication flowing, decided on scheduling, made sure deadlines are made, and ran full team meetings.
“Managing this team has been the most challenging leadership and managerial role I have ever held. That said, it has also been the most rewarding. I am excited for our team to see more rewarding experiences at competition,” says Buchan.
Liam Carey '11
Lafayette’s team is made up of Claire Abadie ’11, Morgan Callahan ’11, Liam Carey ’11, Kelley Goodman ’11, Ming Hong ’11, Jennifer Kihm ’11, Robert Lennon ’11, Martin Racenis ’11, Ed Reilly ’11, Katie Starkweather ’11, Andreas Wallner ’11, and Emily Zettler ’11.