Flight Planning

Overall Problem: Are there active lava flows on the Kilauea volcano?

Relationship of problem in this lesson to overall problem: Students need to identify the elements of a flight plan and create a flight plan for flying the mission to gather appropriate data to determine if there are active lava flows on the Kilauea volcano. 

Estimated Time Required: to be determined

Student Outcomes/Objectives:

• Describe essential elements needed to create a flight plan.
• Identify the optimal aircraft for the volcano mission using the selecting flight plan Table and Aircraft Possibilities Table.
• Create the flight plan for the volcano mission.
• Assess mission flight plan to the actual NASA mission flight plan.

 Prerequisite skills or knowledge:  

• basic reading skills
• basic measurement and measurement conversion skills
• basic internet skills
• simple analytical reasoning skills

• Print Student Journal / Worksheet pages for these activities.
• Secure Internet computers and projection equipment.
• Gather necessary supplies to build airport: Table approximately 2 meters by 2 meter or larger, small miscellaneous boxes (show box size), thin cardboard, markers, masking tape,  bulletin board paper, model airplanes, cars and trucks, rulers.

Student Reflection and Assessment: Reflection   |  Assessment

Education Standards supported by this Lesson:

National Science Education Standards | Project 2061 Benchmarks

National Standards for School Mathematics | National Technology Standards | National Geography Standards

Extension Ideas to support National Education Standards for this Lesson:

Math | Technology | Geography

Teacher Activities

Student Activities

FRAME the Lesson:

Students create a table top airport to prompt their thinking about the elements that affect development of  a flight plan.

Brainstorm students about the components of a flight plan. (Have them think back to the activity of flying the aircraft through the hoop - wind, altitude, take-off and flight distance, etc.)

• Let's build a table top airport (Aeronautics Educator Guide pdf, pp.94-99)

• Simple lesson plan for "Introduction to Flight: Build a Table Top Airport"

Direct students to look at information and pictures of "real" airports and prompt their thinking about their airport, real airports, and what information on airports will be important to planning their flight.

• Airport data (all public airports -- runaway length and map) Some relevant airports include:

  • Honolulu airport | information | picture |

  • Hilo airport | information | picture |

  • Edwards Air Force Base (Home of NASA Dryden) | information | picture |

Debrief airport building activity

• What components are important to include in your airport models and why?

• What do the markings on the runways tell the pilot and why is that important?

• What support structures are at the airport?

• Why do you think you designed an airport?

Remind students to complete the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

Think about the previous lesson

Sample responses:

• where to fly (e.g., distance, altitude, aircraft)

• mission purpose, crew available, cargo

• weather conditions

• time of flight

Sample responses: 

• Runway length, fuel, altitude, services, wind and weather indicators, etc. ... support flights into and out of airport. 

• Numbers on runways correspond to direction in degrees .. 27 is a heading of 270 degrees. 

• Helps to plan flights and landing patterns. 

• Hangers, weather instruments, etc. 

• To learn about the elements of an airport that relate to flight planning.

Students draft responses on  the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

INFORM students of important content or activity instructions: 

Ask students to work together to explore the selection of flight plan and their selected NASA aircraft.

Student Activity: Review several airports and select the best airports for this mission. Consider having the students explore the following sites:

• Map of NASA Dryden 

• Hawaii airports

• Airport information

• Airport data (runaway, map, and etc)

Ask question about airport

• Where are the airports that will be important to the volcano mission?

• Where is the NASA Dryden located?

• Where is the volcano located?

• How far is it from Dryden to the volcano?

Optional mini math-related activity:

• What is the actual runway length of the airports that are important to this mission?

• What is the runway length of your model airport? 

• Prompt students to calculate ratios of their airport model to the actual size of important airport runaways.

Ask (Note: The objective is to get the kids to think about what they need to know.)

• What questions are important to ask to determine your final selection of the best aircraft for this mission? Let students think about other considerable components for selecting flight plan.

• Why are weather requirements important in developing a flight plan?

Direct students select the most optimal aircrafts 

• Now that you know how far the flights for the mission will be and a little about flight planning,  it's time to pick up the best aircraft for flying the volcano mission.

• Here is some additional information that the mission controller has just released to us about the mission:   

  • 1 pilot is available who is prepared to fly either the ER-2 or DC-8, no other flight crew are available. 

  • The lead scientist determined that the images have to be taken at an altitude of 65,000 ft.

Debrief student activity

• What aircraft will you use to fly this mission?

• Why is this aircraft the best choice? Describe your rational based on all of the evidence you have gathered.

 Discuss next step---- develop flight plan for the mission.

Sample responses: 

• Edwards AFB (home of the NASA Dryden research aircraft) and  an  airport in Hawaii 

• NASA Dryden is in Southern California 

• Volcano is in Hawaii 

• Approximately 2550 miles between Dryden and the volcano

Sample students responses: 

• What aircraft can fly the mission?

• What is the necessary runway length for each aircraft?

• Where will the aircraft have to fly, how long? 

• What airports are near the sensing site?

• Do the available airports have the necessary elements to support the aircraft?

• Aircraft take off, flight, and landing requirements, remote sensing instrument requirements for collecting data

• Student determine the best choice of aircraft to fly mission?

Sample responses:

• ER-2 - altitude, crew, airport runways lengths available, flight distance and time, AViRIS requirements.

EXPLORE content:

Students determine the elements of the flight plan and create a flight plan for this mission.

Break students into small group and student explore flight planning web sites (optional activity):

• Hands-on activity: Plan to fly there (Aeronautics Educator Guide pdf, pp.100-104)

Students participate in an activity to create a flight plan:  The students will create simple flight plan, identify the components of a flight plan such as departure time, departure point, route of flight, destination, estimated time route, estimated arrival etc. during this activity. There are some much more complex flight plan request forms available at: Flight request forms. If you and your students are up for a challenge, you may want to complete these plans. It will probably take some additional research on remote sensing flights and perhaps some conversations with mission specialists to figure out how to complete these plans for this simulated mission.

Ask students what questions they need to answer to create a flight plan?

Prompt students to begin activity by sketching a flight path in their journals. They should begin and end at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California. They should also record the distance between each point and time it will take to fly each leg of the mission. Remind students to refer to the information on their Aircraft Properties table. 

Break students into small groups and direct them to create flight plans using the instructions on the student worksheet.

• Prompt students to think about how they would fly the mission, where they have to take-off and land, calculating distances and times, etc. You may want students to review examples of flight paths for other types of missions to see how planners fly different patterns to collect data. Have students review the following site: Flight plans for weather research missions.

After reviewing flight plan sites, Ask:

• How will you plan the flight path to gather the volcano data? e.g., square path, circular path, one straight pass? 

• Why are there different types of path ways to fly?

Remind students to consider the information in their aircraft features table to support flight plan development ... e.g., information on remote sensing requirements, time of day, weather, etc.

Remind students to complete the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

Teacher Resource:

ER-2 Typical Flight Operations | ER-2 operating bases

Other sample flight paths for remote sensing missions:

• Atmospheric circulation research and flight path

• Pacific mapping research flight paths

Sample responses:

• What is the aircraft?

• Under what conditions can the aircraft fly?

• When is the flight?
• what will the flight path be?

• What are the weather requirements?

• What is the flight path?

See sample flight plan to help students as required.

Students draft responses on  the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

TRY using new knowledge:

Students will compare their flight plan to the actual flight (FYI, plan is currently being developed for this lesson) flown to gather the data on Kilauea.

Debrief flight plan activity.

• Students present their plans to the class.

• Class assesses plans

• Class provides feedback to each group's plan

Compare student flight plans to the actual mission flight plan.

• What are there differences between your plans and the actual mission plan?

Summarize lesson and introduce next steps ... collecting the data!

Remind students to complete the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

• Student share their flight plans

Students complete the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

Student Reflection Activities

• Prompt students to record the questions they have, the information they know, what more do they need to know to solve the problem, why do they think that their conclusion are valid, and ideas for further investigation the problem in their electronic reflective journal.

•  Prompt students in group activities to think about 1) what more do they need to know to solve the problem, 2) how they plan on going about it, 3) why do they think that their conclusion are valid.

Remind students to complete the reflection page for this lesson in their journal.

 Assessment

• Students have identified key elements for selecting flight plan.

  • Weather requirements

  •  Budget

  •  Airport and pick the airport:: runaway length, the distance to test sight

   

• Students have identified key processes for creating flight plan and will be able to make a flight plan

  • To identify his/her own flight plan 

  • To get the information on place to take off

  • To get the information on place to land

  • To get the information on flying mission.

go to top

Ideas for Math lesson enhancements:

• Student can build a model airport and calculate the runaway length in comparison with actual airport runaway length

• Students can get how long it takes to get to the site from the airport and also read how long the airport's runways are.

Related National Education Math Standards Standard:

• to be determined

go to top

Ideas for Geography lesson enhancements:

• Students can identify characteristics of weather in relating mission planning

Related National Education Geography Standards Standard:

• to be determined

go to top

 Ideas for Technology lesson enhancements:

• Students identify airports locations in map in order to find runaway length

Related National Education Science Technology Standard:

• to be determined

go to top

Content – Select Flight Plan (SFT)

Content material 1-Weather Requirements:

Weather can be a serious problem to many airplanes and pilots.  The majority of all airplane crashes happen due to bad weather, as one can easily understand when driving in fog.  It is easy to miss the runway in an airplane when you cannot see it, so fog will keep all airplanes on the ground and no matter how urgent a remote sensing test is.  

Fortunately many test do not need to happen very urgently so weather can just delay a flight and the test can be done when the weather becomes better.  Sometimes a scientist will want to know something about the weather and the aircraft will need to be strong enough and equipped enough to fly on days when weather is somewhat of a problem.  For example a scientist might want to perform remote sensing on a thunderstorm, and the test is urgent because the thunderstorm will not last very long.  This creates a mission which needs to be ready to fly in a matter of hours, and the aircraft must be super strong to enable it to fly close to the thunderstorm.  This scenario would rule out the Pathfinder airplane automatically due to it being too fragile to handle the high wind gust of a thunderstorm.  It would also rule out an airplane, which takes more then a few hours to get ready for flight. 

Content Material 2-Budget:

NASA tries to fly as many important remote-sensing missions as possible.  In order to do this they must spend the money on the most suitable missions, and also try to use the most efficient airplanes that they can.  This makes the SR-71 too expensive to fly in regular missions and for the mission that is being looked at here, it is too expensive to use and will not be used. 

Content Material 3-Airport:

Many factors go into choosing the airport that will be used to start and finish the mission.  Lets think about the Space Shuttle, it can not be launched anywhere in the world, only at specially designed launch pads like the one at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  It also cannot land anywhere because it needs very long runways to allow the shuttle to stop.  Even with the use of drag parachutes to help slow the shuttle after touch down, it still uses some of the longest runways in the country to stop.  So runway length can be a major factor in picking an airport.  An airport also needs to be close enough to the test sight, that the airplane can fly to the test sight and perform the mission and than fly back to the airport and land.  Location also plays a role in which airport to use for the test.

Using the Aircraft that you have picked to fly the mission, find the necessary runway length on the Aircraft Properties Table.  Now, compare that runway length to the airports around the mission target sight. Using the runway lengths and the distance from the test area, pick the airport that is most appropriate to the mission. 

  Student Activity Sheet

Name:

Material/information required:

• Map on take-off, mission target, and landing sites

• Type of Aircraft for the mission

• Ruler and unit conversion information

• Sample flight plan form 

 Activity: Develop a flight plan for the mission considering the following questions...

Step 1: To identify flight path 

• What' your chosen aircraft?

• Where is the volcano?

• Where is your NASA aircraft?

Step 2: Gather airport information on place of take off

• What is the departure airport?

• When with the aircraft take off?

• What will be the cruise speed of the aircraft?

• What weather is required for take off?

  Step 3: Gather landing location information. 

• What is the destination airport?

• What time will landing occur?

• What  weather is required for landing?

Step 4: Gather information on flying mission.

• What time will the aircraft take-off?

• What direction and how far will the aircraft fly to get to the data collection location? 

• At what speed will you fly to get to the data collection area and how long will it take to get to the pattern location? 

• What flight speed is required for collecting data with remote sensing instrument?

• What kind of a pattern will you fly during data collection?

• Calculate the flight plan distance and map:

  • Distance from take-off to data collection pattern

  • Distance for data gathering pattern

  • Distance from data gathering location to landing.

• Calculate time for collecting data during mission 

  • What is the take-off time?

  • What time should the R/S instrument be turned on?

  • What time should the RS instrument be turn off ?

  • What will the aircraft land?

Reflection about my flight plan: Write a one page essay answering the questions below ...

• How will this flight plan help me to conduct this mission?

• Is this flight plan adequate for the mission?  why or why not?

• What else do you need to know to have a successful mission?

  Aircraft Properties Table Sample Solution -- for teacher

This matrix will be completed by students throughout the KaAMS aeronautics activities. The answers are provided in this version to support teachers with questions that may arise during any of the activities. Teachers may need to provide some of the data to students when lessons are either completed out of order or not completed in this unit. Information students should be identifying during this lesson is in blue text, depending on the resources used. You will need to provide students with information they could not locate in the resources provided at the end of their research.

back to lesson plan