Blake Scholl

So I had to learn it.

And by the way, it's fun.

So, you know, so I bought every aerospace textbook that was, you know, used for teaching at the top universities.

And I've quickly found I couldn't understand them.

And so I went back, I did remedial calculus and remedial physics on Khan Academy.

I didn't remember anything.

I hadn't had any since high school.

And I just made my way through it over the course of about a year.

And so I think in some ways, walking in not knowing anything is a disadvantage, but I think it's actually mostly an advantage because...

I didn't want to spend a decade of my life going and getting a new degree and then going to work at Boeing or something and trying to learn it that way.

I didn't want to spend that kind of time.

I didn't have that kind of time.

So I had to go really focus myself on first principles.

And I wanted to understand the fundamentals.

And it turns out that focus is incredibly powerful.

For example, you want to predict the performance of an airplane.

there are really only four numbers that matter.

There's aerodynamic efficiency, which is the lift-to-drag ratio.

For every pound of airplane I hold up with my wings, how many pounds of drag do I incur?

That's aerodynamic efficiency, one number.