Sanzhar Myrzagalym
A dream of flight
Perhaps everyone at some point in their life has found themselves mesmerized by the sight of a massive metal bird gaining altitude in the sky, leaving a white trail among the clouds. Airplanes have always been a particular inspiration to me; they enable humans to do something inherently unnatural for them—to fly.
The beginning
I remember the first day my mother took me to an aeromodeling club. I was 10 years old. My eyes lit up immediately upon seeing the vast array of model airplanes suspended from the ceiling: gliders, control line, and radio-controlled models, some of which were replicas of World War II-era aircraft. That marked the beginning of my dive into engineering: I began to understand the physical processes that allow airplanes to take off, learned to prepare drawings, work with hand tools, and most importantly – meticulously, detail by detail, build airplanes.My instructor, a man of old Soviet training, had his own methodology for teaching these skills: he set a task, showed an example, and waited for me to achieve the desired result, pointing out my mistakes along the way. Each student had a few personal tools, but most were communal. We were responsible for their maintenance: sharpening knives, changing saw blades, etc. Every day, I swept up the sawdust from the floor and scraped dried wood glue off the tables. While doing this, my instructor and I would talk about everything from airplanes to aliens. Looking back, I realize that Sergey Viktorovich, in many ways, filled the role of a father for me.
For several years in a row, my summers were spent at an airfield, participating in competitions launching the models we had built over many months. My favorite were the air battles, where dozens of model planes took to the sky with the goal of cutting ribbons tied to their opponents' tails.
Airplanes and the very sensation of flight became an integral part of my life. Random facts: I sincerely believe that the most beautiful plane in history is the British Spitfire, and my favorite animated film is 'The Wind Rises' by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.
As I wrote earlier, building a single model could take me several months. I meticulously carved each part of the plane from wood, weighing each piece to make it as light as possible and avoid imbalance. A bit of theory: an airplane wing is made of many ribs – nervures – which give it an aerodynamic shape. It is thanks to the wing profile that a plane can rise into the air and glide efficiently.
The most challenging part for me was to carve these dozens of nervures from wood. I had to cut out the inner part of each one with a hand jigsaw to reduce the weight. They often broke, and I had to start over. That's probably when I learned patience :D
Everything changes
Many years later, when my friends and I opened our own prototyping lab (Sheberkhana), the first idea that came to mind to test our new laser cutter was to try cutting a pack of nervures.After a quick internet search, I transferred the image of the ideal wing profile for a glider into CorelDRAW, created a drawing over it, duplicated it many times, and sent it for cutting. In just 2-3 minutes, I had perfectly lightweight airplane wing parts in my hands. At that moment, I really wanted to share this excitement with my instructor, but I'm not sure he would have approved of this method :) In any case, I am immensely grateful to Sergey Viktorovich, as he instilled in me a love for engineering and gave me skills in working with various materials.
Regrets and efforts to minimize them
One of my biggest regrets is that this generation of engineers, with vast experience and knowledge from Soviet times, is gradually disappearing without fully passing on their expertise to the new generation. That's why, at Sheberkhana, we've tried to preserve this legacy by recording a series of lessons on aeromodeling — some episodes were even shown on kids' television (Pic. 1-2 below) and integrating this field into STEM education for children at our lab (Pic. 3-6 below).P.S. The dream of flight is still alive, and I hope to obtain a pilot's license in the foreseeable future, so that this feeling of freedom never leaves me :)