I worked there as a work-study student. Part of the job was wiping down the tunnel chamber after their test runs. The smoke you see used in wind tunnel videos is not actually smoke, but a white oil. And for a FWS job the pay wasn't bad, had to put on a bunny suit and crawl around tight spaces, LOL.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_Stability_Wind_T...
Magnetically levitating the model in the tunnel and measuring the forces by measuring how the magnets need to be driven to keep the model in place is pretty cool.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/28/boeing-says-thorough-t...
> Both errors could have been caught before launch if Boeing had performed more thorough software testing on the ground, according to John Mulholland, vice president and manager of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner program.
> Mulholland said Boeing engineers performed testing of Starliner’s software in chunks, with each test focused on a specific segment of the mission. Boeing did not perform an end-to-end test of the entire software suite, and in some cases used stand-ins, or emulators, for flight computers.
Cheaping out cost billions and nearly two astronauts.
Things that are tested/validated in wind tunnels nowadays: effect of different paint and coatings, engine inlet flow, noise, tunned mass dampers, effect of placement of sensors, control surface flutter.
This is a reminder that nobody starts at the top. They usually start by copying a lot of what those at the top do, as a shortcut to getting there.
I'm positive someone could show me an impressive thing we built recently. I don't feel like that is my point. Im just astounded those people in that time could build what they built with the tools they had as fast as they did.
This also introduces massive potential for bike shedding, nitpicking, stalling, etc which of course costs us all.