Aerodynamics Merit Badge History

1948 requirements

1. Show that air has weight and pressure with a homemade barometer made from a dish and a tall glass of water, and explain how air changes with altitude and the problems that causes for engines, flight and the pilot.
2. Demonstrate Bernoulli's law, that faster-moving air has lower pressure, with a thread spool and a small card, or a tube and a ping-pong ball.
3. Build a small airfoil wing section and use it to show how a wing makes lift, and draw a rough diagram explaining the four forces of flight, thrust, lift, gravity and drag.
4. Build three drag-test shapes of the same width (a cube, a cylinder and a streamlined form) from an oatmeal box, cardboard and paper, and mount them on small rolling supports to show air resistance in an air current.
5. Build and demonstrate a simple wind tunnel, or a simple airspeed-measuring device.
6. Build a rubber-band-powered model airplane of a type new to you and fly it in a competition (a kit may be used).
7. Using a rough side view of a monoplane, explain the angle of attack, show how the air stream lets the control surfaces steer the plane, and tell which control surfaces the stick and pedals move.
8. Give six or more ways a pilot about to land can tell the wind direction, explain why planes take off and land into the wind, and explain why a plane stalls.
9. Compare two propellers of about the same size but different pitch in an air current, and explain the advantages of a variable-pitch propeller.

Source: Handbook for Boys (1948), summarized