Feeling the pressure

October 2020

Q: If you were flying inside a perfectly sealed aircraft passenger cabin, would your ears pop when ascending or descending? Explain why or why not, and why designers accept some ear popping.

Draft a response of no more than 250 words and email it by midnight Oct. 12 to aeropuzzler@aiaa.org for a chance to have it published in the November issue.

NOT SO DICEY: We asked you where on the French Riviera a simulation expert was headed to celebrate her success at predicting the outcome of some hypersonic test flights.

WINNER: Monte Carlo! In project management, we sometimes do quantitative risk analysis with a tool like the Risky Project application. We load our project schedule or budget and our risk assumptions into the application, and it performs a Monte Carlo analysis by running project simulations hundreds or thousands of times, much like our French simulation expert “flying” her prototype maneuverable hypersonic aircraft many times! One output can be a graphical representation of the probability of completing the project by a certain date or within a certain budget.

Bob Morin, AIAA senior member
Las Vegas
morinrj@nv.doe.gov
Morin is a senior principal project manager at Mission Support & Test Services, which operates the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site.