rn. Toddlers always remind us of the curious child within all of us – the explorer of the world’s wonders, the kid ‘inside’ which ‘sees’ and ‘touches’ everything for the first time. They, among all, deserve special attention and that is why around the world people celebrate ‘Children’s day’. In Bulgaria, as adopted in the former Communist bloc, we honor the youth on the 1^st of June.

Seeming purposively planned on that same day this year, a good friend of mine and son of a proud Bulgarian mother, gave his final graduation presentation. Family, friends and professors gathered in one of the rooms in the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering to attend this memorable event.

Agent Dountchev is an important figure in our little but united ‘Delftse’ Bulgarian community. He is the one who greeted me upon my arriaval and took me as a brother in his house. With almost 10 years of Delft experience under his belt and all the dramatic ‘knock-outs’ he has given to the Aerospace exams, he has always been a ‘guiding star’ in my struggles when I needed him.

me and Dountchev with a mini gas turbine

Doutchev is the first Bulgarian who has graduated from a master program in our faculty. He specialised in Mini Gas Turbines and showed in-depth knowledge of the project he had worked  on.  The presentation was quite interesting and I could actually follow it – although the technicality was really specific.

The examiners did pay a close attention and after the presentation stroke a few on-point questions, but witty Doutchev, did answer back quickly without hesitation. After that, they moved in a special room where they ‘interrogated’ him thoroughly and were convinced he deserved the amazing  grade of 8 – quite a remarkable feat for an Aerospace Master of Sciences in Delft. We, his friends, are really proud of him and will do our best to built upon the good start he set.

But there is still some time until we, the 2^nd year of Bachelor Aerospace Engineers, reach this moment. So we should keep our patience levels up high and keep on striving persistently until one day we can also experience this success. In the mean time, we had  to prepare for a wind tunnel experiment, so I headed to the library. My friends were already studying the assignment.

Currently, we have a course in Aerodynamics, where we learn about the behavior of air at supersonic speeds (above Mach 1) and how these airflows act depending on the type of windtunnel. A wind tunnel is supremely useful and important in the study and development phase of a new aircraft for example. And our faculty has quite a few of them, which are also accessible by the students at certain period of the studies. In the 1^st year, we did do some measurements in the low-speed one, but in the second we shift gears are allowed to explore the high speeds. For stimulation, if we did good during this practical we could score extra 2 points for our upcoming exam.

At the Faculty’s wind tunnel laboratories we were greeted by a PhD student – an Aerodynamist from Spain and were quickly introduced to the wave behavior of water – which is a ‘cousin’ to air, differing in density.  

After the demo, we moved to the ‘real deal’ – the Supersonic Wind Tunnel capable of reaching speed in the range of Mach 3. On the picture below, you may also see all the pipes which measure the pressure throughout the tunnel.  

The instructor explained us everything about the operation of this tool and let us took the measurements ourselves. We needed the data later for performing a series of calculations, making graphs and for which we produced graphs and did interpreted the observations.

We had 3 short hours for completing the exercise and delivering our work to the tutor. Therefore, we were quite focused and  the teamwork skills we had learned from other projects proved to be invaluable.  

Having finished that and having it off our mind, we continued with a delicious Turkish doner and celebration drink in honor of Mr. Dountchev.