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On the wings of a dream

Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

WINNING COMBINATION Srinath and Anusha

S. Srinath and R. Anusha travelled on an airplane for the first time in their lives recently. The two engineering students had heard a lot about what it would be like, but found their experience was rather different from that of other first-time flyers. That’s probably because the others hadn’t designed an entire aircraft just a couple of months before. Or won an award from NASA for their design.

It’s hard to tell what the two Anna University students are more enthusiastic about when we – their first journey aboard a plane or their recently announced second prize in the international category of NASA’s Fundamental Aeronautics contest that

will take them to Atlanta, U.S.A., this October to present their paper at a NASA conference and receive their award. It all began back in January when Anusha, a final-year mechanical engineering student, stumbled across the announcement for the design contest while browsing the space agency’s website.

For the last year, she had been doing independent research in aerodynamics under the guidance of Dr. E. Natarajan, a specialist in combustion and propulsion, and this was the perfect opportunity to put all that she’d learned together. And it was only natural that she would team up with Srinath, the third-year student of geo-informatics she’d worked with on post-graduate-level projects under Dr. Natarajan. “They didn’t cudgel their brains to come up with something for just this paper,” remarks the professor, who served as their faculty advisor for the contest. “Rather, it was a matter of putting together things they’d been working on for some time.”

That meant the duo’s unusual Blended Wing Body aircraft design came together rather smoothly in the next couple of months. They became one of the 14 teams from across the world taking part in the contest that required participants to design a transport aircraft of the future – one that would be able to take off on a short runway, would use noise-reduction technology and be fuel efficient. When the results were announced via email about a month later, they couldn’t believe their eyes – literally.

“The email just said a two-man team from Anna University had won second place. I called Srinath and said, ‘It’s probably us, right?’” says Anusha, adding in amusement, “I actually mailed them back asking ‘is it us?’”

Not surprisingly, aeronautics features pretty prominently in their future plans. Anusha wants to do post-graduate studies and research in aeronautical engineering and Srinath plans to specialise in photogrammetry, the study of aerial photography for creating three-dimensional models and maps of the earth’s surface.

Meanwhile, their love-affair with everything aircraft-related continues, as evidenced by the way their eyes roll up to the sky in unison every time a low-flying jet plane roars by on its way to the airport just a few kilometres away.

“We always look up at them and try and guess what aircraft it is,” says Srinath by way of explanation.

And they don’t even mind the constant noise of planes overhead at their campus. “We love it because it reminds us of all that engine technology – it’s like background music,” he says with a grin.

In their case, you could probably call it the sweet sound of success.

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