Lec 1 MIT 16.885J Aircraft Systems Engineering, Fall 2005
HOFFMAN: Welcome everyone to 16.885. And I guess this is ESD.35 as well. I think. I cannot keep track of the number. Formally the title is Aircraft Systems Engineering. I never thought I would actually be teaching a course with aircraft in the title of it since I am not an airplane person, I am a space person. But, as you all know, we have decided to devote the course this year to a study of the Space Shuttle. Very briefly, what the course has been historically, it was taught for quite a few years by Professors Murman and Hansman in the Aero-Astro Department. It is a course in systems engineering devoted to aircraft systems. And what they typically would do would be to have a series of lectures about principles of systems engineering, and also about various systems - general systems in aviation. And then, as a class assignment, the students would work in teams and choose an aircraft and do a systems analysis study of that aircraft. Well, a couple of years ago we were just...