Pulsejet-Powered UAV: Aerodynamics Lead

Role: Aerodynamics team lead
Skills: Conceptual aircraft design, CAD, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), mentoring

I am a lead in a student club that is designing and building an unmanned aerial vehicle around a pulsejet engine.

CAD model of the pulsejet UAV: slender fuselage, straight wings, twin vertical tails, and the pulsejet engine mounted above the rear fuselage — Early CAD concept of the pulsejet UAV airframe.

What I do

Lead the aerodynamics team and teach newer undergraduates the full design workflow, from first principles to a model that is ready for analysis.
Lay out the airframe using general aerodynamic principles before any detailed modeling.
Turn the conceptual design into a CAD model of the airframe.
Run computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on the model to check and refine its aerodynamic performance.