Neil, A Wind Tunnel, and Me

​                           Part 1 – Neil Trivia: 

​Meet Neil Armstrong! He was born in my hometown of Wapakoneta. His claim to fame – he was the first man to set foot on the moon. That was  over 50 years ago, and I still can’t believe that someone from Wapakoneta could do something so history-making. Here are two trivia questions about Neil when he was16. Would you believe he was a school year away from graduation?!
 
1. Which license did Neil Armstrong earn first?         
Driver’s license                            Pilot’s license
 
2. What did he start building a month later?
A Wind Tunnel                             A Generator

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The answers . . .
1.   Neil earned his pilot’s license first. He started taking lessons at age 15, and he paid for them himself! Neil worked at the local drug store, stocking and sweeping. He earned 40 cents an hour. When he turned 16 on August 5, 1946, Neil took his solo flight, and he earned his pilot’s license. He didn’t get his driver’s license until the following spring, just in time to drive to prom. 
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2.    Neil built a wind tunnel. He had dreamed about it for years. He’d studied them in aeronautic magazines, taken notes on how they were put together and how they worked. Neil modeled his wind tunnel after the Wright Brothers, the ones who were the first in flight. BTW – Neil build his generator when he was in Boy Scouts in Upper Sandusky. He was probably in middle school, but it was definitely before he moved to Wapakoneta in 1944. 
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Sources of Information:

Neil Armstrong - Wikipedia

​Neil A. Armstrong - Ohio History Central

Neil Armstrong’s Wind Tunnel Dream
         By Me, Rinda Beach

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​ Part 2 – Wind Tunnels  –   What are They?   What do They Do?     Why are They Important?    

​This is one of NASA’s wind tunnels. It’s 12 feet or 12 floor tiles long. It has a model of a D-11 airplane inside. It was made to scale so it’s a miniature version of the real plane. I think this picture of the wind tunnel was taken in January of 1996.
 
Why is it a wind tunnel? 1. It’s a large tube. 2. Large fans blow air through it. 3. The tube is used to test how a plane that’s anchored in the tunnel, reacts when wind moves around it. It’s the same reaction the plane would have when it’s flying through the sky.
 
Why are wind tunnels important? It’s easier and cheaper to test a model and correct the design before the real plane is built. Some tunnels are model-size, but there are some big enough for real planes and cars to fit inside.
 
This is one of the earliest wind tunnels. It helped Wilbur and Orville Wright design and fly the first airplane. Obviously the Wrights never put the real plane inside. But testing a scale model of the Wright Flyer in that wind tunnel, helped them get the real one off the ground.

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The Wright Flyer was the first heavier-than-air powered plane to take flight. Wilbur and Orville flew it four times on December 17, 1903. They picked the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina so they’d have a softer landing pad. They hoped there’d be less damage to the plane, and fewer repairs.


The first flight took the plane 105 feet in 3.5 seconds. That’s 35 yards down a football field. Their best flight was the last one that day. It took the plane 852 feet in 59 seconds. That’s 284 yards or almost 3 football fields they flew over, and they stayed in the air for almost a minute. If you’d like to see the Wright Flyer, go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
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​Take a look at this wind tunnel. The photo was taken in 1935 when it was part of a German aviation lab. I couldn’t find anything else about this wind tunnel, but I wanted to share it so you can see how big they can be. I’d love to walk inside, and take a look around.

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This is a photo from 1990. It shows fan blades from a 16-foot transonic wind tunnel. Transonic means the plane reached or broke the sound barrier. Those flights used to get bumpy, but transonic wind tunnels helped make them smoother.

Look at the dark bar in the middle. Shift your eyes to the right. Then look for a person who’s walking around inside the tunnel. Can you imagine a fan blade that’s taller than you? I can’t!
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Sorry, you can’t walk inside this tunnel any more. It was retired in 2004 from NASA’s Langley Research Center. I wonder what they have now.

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​Information Sources:
 
Wind tunnel - Wikipedia
 
Wright Flyer - Wikipedia

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                                            Photo Sources:

- Replica of the Wright brothers' wind tunnel: By The original uploader was Axda0002 at English Wikipedia. - Photographed by uploader, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3780674
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- German Aviation Laboratory in 1935:  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-17158 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5415574



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Part 3 – How to Build a Wind Tunnel
This is my wind tunnel. I built it – actually my husband did, but I could have.
​It’s actually really simple to do – if you know how to use duct tape!

​I built a wind tunnel because I wrote about it in my first book, Neil Armstrong’s Wind Tunnel Dream. If you’ve read my book, you know that building a wind tunnel was Neil’s first step into the future. He never planned to be the first man on the moon. He started out to become an aeronautical engineer – the kind who build great airplanes. His first step – to build that wind tunnel!

​​ I never thought my first published book would be about Neil Armstrong. I thought they’d be about ants or dogs or ducks. Surprise!

​I got interested in Neil because I used to volunteer at his museum in Wapakoneta. This is from one of their cases. The wooden square is part of a generator Neil built, probably in middle school. The red dog is his Boy Scout scarf, and the tub – that’s what’s left of his wind tunnel.
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Neil built it when he was 16. His fan didn’t come from his house . . . Neil used a propeller from an airplane, a real one! Neil was an incredible thinker and explorer!

I never thought my first published book would be about Neil Armstrong. I thought they’d be about ants or dogs or ducks. Surprise!

I got interested in Neil because I used to volunteer at his museum in Wapakoneta. This is from one of their cases. The wooden square is part of a generator Neil built, probably in middle school. The red dog is his Boy Scout scarf, and the tub – that’s what’s left of his wind tunnel.

Neil built it when he was 16. His fan didn’t come from his house . . . Neil used a propeller from an airplane, a real one! Neil was an incredible thinker and explorer!

​Next put the tubes inside the box. Start where the white boxes begin. End before the window. I used golf tubes, the kind that you put into your golf bag so your clubs don’t scratch each other, but you could use any kind of cylinder. Just make sure they’re the same length, then stuff them into your box.

​    Why do you need the tubes? To straighten the wind so you can control the way it hits your model.

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​You could do this step next, or the one below it.

First, get a fan. Pick one that’s strong enough to feel 30 feet away. This one disappeared. I bought another . . . it was too weak. The wind couldn’t lift my plane, at all.
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Once you have a fan, find a box that fits around it. Duct tape the box to the fan. Then tape it onto the white boxes so they look like my tunnel below.



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​​                                                                                                                            Part 4 – A Wind Tunnel Visit with Me

​Now that you’ve read this post about wind tunnels – can you imagine bringing me in for a school or club visit? I can do them in person, or on zoom. I can tailor your session to cover whatever you need. I taught 2nd grade for 33 years, and I’ve subbed in Preschool through 5th grade. I’ve also done a few clubs and museum visits.
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What would a wind tunnel visit look like? I’d probably start with a picture walk through my book. It gives you a baseline for what a wind tunnel looks like, and an idea for who Neil Armstrong was as a kid, and as a young man.
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​Then I’d pull out my REAL wind tunnel, and we’d play with it. No, I mean – I’d show you how it works the way I have it set up. Then I’d ask you for some ideas to experiment with. We could put my plane in different positions, or try new things that fit inside of it. It’s more fun when you test out your own ideas.

​We’d also use the scientific method (or reading skills) by making a guess or prediction about what the new object would do to my cooking scale. Would it raise the number of grams, or lower them? Next, duh! We’d test our guesses. Then we’d end by examining the data to come up with a conclusion. It’s fun to pretend to be a scientist!

​The fun thing about science – well, not always – you never know if it will work, or work the way it’s supposed to. I did a talk about wind tunnels at the Wyandot Museum in Upper Sandusky, Neil’s other hometown. My wind tunnel refused to work. It stopped me in my tracks. OUCH!

The best thing about mistakes – is that you can learn from them. I usually learn more from my mistakes than the things I do right. Yay! A silver lining!

If I could go back to Upper, I’d talk about what changed. We’d come up with a hypothesis to get the wind tunnel working again. Then – duh – we’d test it out. I imagine that’s what Neil did with the real wind tunnel.
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So, what changed? I lost my original fan. The new one blew, but not strong enough to lift my plane. My next hypothesis – it was the fan – so I got a new one. A stronger one! The package said you could feel the wind 30 feet away. It’s smaller than my original fan, but it works! So now if you’d like me and my wind tunnel to come, we’d love to! BTW – Can you guess what happens to the scale when the wind lifts up the plane? You’ll have to invite me in for a visit, or, build your own wind tunnel!

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​I can also talk about how to make your own wind tunnel. It’s not hard! If I can make one, you can too! If you don’t need specifics, your kids could tell me how they’d make one, after looking at mine. That’s what I wrote about in part 3 of this post.

If you’d like to make wind tunnels with your kids, I can do that too. I have the materials listed in my book. In fact, if you can get your hands on a copy of it, the back matter can be used to make your own individualized lesson plans.

Part 1 (language arts) tells you what parts of the story are true.  Part 2 and 3 (science or language arts) tell you how to make a primary or more advanced wind tunnel. I also have a link to show you an expensive primary wind tunnel that I wish I’d had when I was teaching 2nd grade. Part 4 (science) gives you some ideas for how to use your wind tunnel. Science can be so much fun! It’s still one of my favorite subjects to teach!

​ Would you like to learn about wind tunnels? What are they? How can you use them? I can talk about them in a visit, or you can take a look at the four photos I wrote about in part 2. Do you recognize this picture or the one below it?

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This one is the wind tunnel that helped the Wright Brothers become the first in flight back in 1903. Imagine – a couple of bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio – they were the first people to invent a successful flying machine, AND they came from OHIO! Dayton’s only an hour away from Wapakoneta!

​​This second photo is Orville and Wilbur’s famous airplane, the Wright Flier! Did the brothers ever put their full-size plane inside the wind tunnel? I doubt it! The real plane wouldn’t fit, and I think it would have cost a lot to make a full-size one, but who knows? Maybe!

Fun fact – did you know Neil researched wind tunnels all through middle school? How? He read aviation magazines for fun! He finally picked the Wright design when he decided he was ready to build his own wind tunnel.

​If I’ve convinced you that you need to schedule a visit with me, either online or in person, just message me. We’ll work out the details to make your visit fit your dreams!

Fun Fact – I can do more than wind tunnels for an author visit. Check out my Pinterest Boards! I’ve written 360 posts, and counting. I’ve done over 264 book reviews. Link: (171) Pinterest

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, message me! I can search my blog/review spreadsheet to see if I have something for you. If I don’t, give me about a month, and I can create it! I love trying new things, learning new things!

I’ll end this post the way I do my videos! Chow for now! My video will be up Sunday, the 26th. My book review for this post will be up Monday, the 27th. I guarantee it will be something about space! It’s really hard to find anything about wind tunnels!

Video Link - (1) Facebook

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