• This is a Text investigation. Consider your essential question in the context of at least two outside sources you have identified that connect to your essential question. How do these ideas resonate with or challenge your own beliefs, experiences, or practices? Be sure to give concrete and specific examples. You may want to address: ways the sources answered parts of your Essential Question, what additional questions were raised, or how your essential understanding of your project was altered or confirmed by the readings you did. Make sure to cite your sources.

So far, I have been reading “My Ship” a memoir from a sailor who served onboard Intrepid during WWII. His writing, although a little rough around the edges (including offensive language used during the time of the Second World War), has brought me into the scary world of the ship and illuminated how terrifying living so close to an engineers dream is. He was not a pilot (he plotted radar), but his vivid descriptions of the torpedo attack, flight operations, crashes and so much more have really transported me into the world. So far, they have brought me to one main conclusion, that during WWII, the engineers were not designing around the humans, and they therefore had a very minimal impact on the designs. There are so many decisions that he has described that seem mind boggling if you were to be attempting to design around a person, with one example being how unbelievably loud the propeller driven aircraft were, and how little the engineers of both the ship and the plane tried to hide the noise and protect the sailors. Now I am also sure that this is different today, with better technology, however, it is still very interesting information. Now another (less traditional source) that has helped me answer my essential question has been my edX course, introduction to aeronautical engineering. Now, while it is not a traditional “text,” the course has given me a decent mix of video and text information that has really taught me about the fundamentals of aeronautical engineering. The best example I can give comes from last weeks blog post, where I learned about the principals of stability, and how if you want a plane to be longitudinally stable, it must have a center of mass, placed in front of its center of lift.

My ship: amazon.com/My-Ship-U-S-S-Intrepid-Memoir/dp/0974691607

Edx Course: https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-aeronautical-engineering-2