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Aerospace Systems: Fixed-Wing Aircraft Aerodynamics
New
21 students
Aerospace Systems: Fixed-Wing Aircraft Aerodynamics
Wings, propulsion, flight controls, stealth, structures, and systems the full fixed-wing aircraft stack for working en
Created byOmar Koryakin
Last updated 4/2026
English
What you'll learn
- • Explain how lift, drag, and thrust interact across the full flight envelope, from takeoff to cruise to landing.
- • Predict boundary-layer behaviour, flow separation, and stall onset from an airfoil + angle-of-attack combination.
- • Read a wing planform and infer its speed regime, manoeuvrability, sweep strategy, and high-lift system.
- • Analyse transonic and supersonic phenomena — shock-wave formation, wave drag, and area ruling.
- • Explain aeroelastic failure modes — flutter, divergence, and control reversal — at engineering level.
- • Compare turbojet, turbofan, turboprop, turboshaft, and piston propulsion on thrust, SFC, weight, and mission fit.
- • Walk through a fly-by-wire control architecture, including redundancy, control laws, and envelope protection.
- • Identify the four classical dynamic stability modes — phugoid, short-period, Dutch roll, spiral — and why they matter.
- • Trace primary load paths in a metallic or composite airframe and relate them to inspection intervals.
- • Describe safe-life vs fail-safe vs damage-tolerant design philosophies and when each applies.
- • Explain stealth shaping (faceting, planform alignment, S-ducts), RAM, and IR-signature management.
- • Interpret an aircraft's hydraulic, pneumatic, fuel, electrical, and avionics architectures at block-diagram level.
- • Map a scheduled-maintenance programme (A-/B-/C-/D-checks, NDI methods) onto real airframe hardware.
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Course content
6 sections • 35 lectures • 1h 39m total length
Requirements
- • High-school level physics forces, pressures, and basic Newtonian mechanics.
- • Comfort with block diagrams and simple engineering sketches.
- • No prior aerospace coursework required the first two lessons rebuild the necessary foundations.
- • No specific CAD or simulation software is required; concepts are shown through animated visuals.
Description
Fixed-wing aircraft are one of the most demanding engineered systems on the planet. A commercial jet integrates aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, flight controls, avionics, hydraulics, electrical power, environmental control, and airworthiness management into a package that must hold together through millions of pressurization cycles and tens of thousands of flight hours. This course walks through the complete fixed-wing stack the way a practicing aerospace engineer actually sees it and it goes deep.
Over 30 focused lessons and roughly you'll cover every subsystem, every flight regime, and every major design trade-off a working aerospace engineer has to hold in their head. Each lesson is short and visual. Instead of dense equations on a whiteboard, you'll watch boundary layers separate, shock waves form, wings flex under load, control surfaces deflect, turbofan stages spool up, landing gear extend, radar signatures shift, and maintenance tasks map onto real hardware animated on real geometry, with the key numbers and design trade-offs called out as they happen.
What makes this course different:
• Comprehensive depth, not a survey 30 lessons across 5 modules cover everything from standard-atmosphere physics to hypersonic considerations, from piston aero-engines to thrust-vectoring afterburners, from A-checks to D-checks, and the full certification basis under Part 23/25 and CS-23/25.
• Systems-level, not slide-deck-level — every module connects the physics to the hardware and the hardware to the maintenance reality.
• Animation-first lift, drag, shock waves, engine cycles, dynamic stability modes, and fly-by-wire behavior are shown in motion, not described in a paragraph.
• Works for engineers moving sideways mechanical, controls, electrical, manufacturing, and quality engineers brought into aerospace programmed will find a shared baseline here.
• Stealth and survivability treated as a proper engineering subject — shaping, planform alignment, S-ducts, radar-absorbent materials, IR-signature management, and electronic warfare are full lessons, not sidebars.
• Maintenance and airworthiness included end-to-end A/B/C/D-check structure, non-destructive inspection methods, fatigue + damage-tolerance reasoning, and certification paths are part of the curriculum, because a design that can't be maintained or certified doesn't fly.
About the instructor:
Omar Koryakin Principal Engineer. I've spent my career in precision engineering and aerospace-adjacent work, and I teach because the next generation of engineers deserves clear, visual explanations instead of decades-old textbook scans. My courses reach tens of thousands of engineers worldwide. If it can be drawn, it can be understood.
Full lesson outline (30 lessons · 5 modules)
Module 1 Aerodynamic Foundations
L01 Introduction to Fixed-Wing Flight
L02 The Atmosphere, Density, and the Standard Day
L03 Airfoil Geometry and Terminology
L04 Pressure Fields and Lift Generation
L05 Circulation, Vorticity, and the Kutta Condition
L06 Drag Decomposition: Form, Skin-Friction, Induced, Wave
Module 2 Low-Speed Aerodynamics and Stall
L07 Boundary Layers: Laminar vs Turbulent
L08 Flow Separation and Stall Mechanics
L09 Angle of Attack and the Lift Curve
L10 Reynolds Number and Aerodynamic Scaling
L11 Ground Effect and Low-Altitude Behaviour
L12 Gusts, Turbulence, and Atmospheric Disturbances
Module 3 Wings and High-Lift Systems
L13 Wing Planform, Aspect Ratio, and Span Efficiency
L14 Sweep, Dihedral, and Wing Twist
L15 Leading-Edge Devices: Slats, Krueger Flaps, Slots
L16 Trailing-Edge Flaps: Plain, Split, Slotted, Fowler
L17 Winglets, Raked Tips, and Induced-Drag Reduction
L18 Spoilers, Speed Brakes, and Lift Dumpers
Module 4 High-Speed and Transonic Aerodynamics
L19 Compressibility and Mach Number
L20 Transonic Effects and Shock-Wave Formation
L21 Supersonic Wing Design and Area Ruling
L22 Wave-Drag Management
L23 Hypersonic Considerations
L24 Aeroelasticity: Flutter, Divergence, Control Reversal
Module 5 Propulsion
L25 Propeller Aerodynamics and Blade-Element Theory
L26 Piston Aero-Engines and Constant-Speed Propellers
L27 Turbojet Thermodynamic Cycle
L28 Turbofan Cycle: Bypass Ratios Explained
L29 Turboprop and Turboshaft Cycles
L30 Afterburners, Variable-Geometry Inlets, and Thrust Vectoring
Who this course is for:
- • Mechanical, controls, manufacturing, or systems engineers moving into an aerospace or defense programme.
- • Consultants and analysts supporting aerospace clients who need a fast, rigorous baseline.
- • Graduate engineers joining airframer, engine-OEM, or Tier-1 supplier teams.
- • Technical program managers, product managers, and procurement leads responsible for aerospace scopes.
- • Students in mechanical, aerospace, or electrical engineering preparing for an industry role.
- • MRO, airline engineering, and quality teams who need a sharper systems view.
- • Career-switchers with a strong engineering background entering defense or commercial aviation.