Education Through Aviation
Bill Pritchett | [email protected]
"I would rather entertain and hope that people learned than educate people and hope they were entertained." — Walt Disney
I find it difficult to argue with Walt. My experience in the classroom always pointed toward engaging and entertaining kids with the activities presented to them. During the course of those activities I would often sneak up on them and, without their knowing it, teach them something!
That's the beauty of our department's logo and theme: Education Through Aviation. You will find it difficult to find many people who don't like things that fly. Maybe the old black-and-white movies of guys jumping off buildings with feather wings really tell us a bigger story.
Man has always dreamed of flying. It is the ultimate freedom. Watch a bird—here in the Midwest, a beautiful red hawk—soaring effortlessly, seemingly forever. Wouldn't that be fun?
So what does this have to do with anything? It has to do with the teacher within us. The next time you go flying, take the opportunity to ask someone if he or she would like to try it. You'll be amazed at how many want to, but hesitate to ask.
Most visitors to the field ask how far it goes, how high it will fly, what the cost is, etc. What they're really asking is if they could give it a try. Be positive, patient, and thorough in a brief ground school.
I usually just have them put their thumbs on top of mine for a brief flight. It's important that they realize how minute the control deflections are on the transmitter. Haven't most of us seen a near or total disaster that was a result of overcontrolling the aircraft?
After that flight, if you have one (I always carry one), hook up a buddy box and give the person a shot at it. With a calm, quiet voice, suggest small things here and there. Avoid the temptation to tell this potential new modeler everything you know about flying model aircraft in the first three minutes of his or her first attempt! Give the person just enough time to have some idea of what the ultimate 3-D video game feels like. Tell him or her to imagine being inside the aircraft. I never talk about left or right. I say, "Put yourself inside the plane." Allow enough time for him or her to have some success.
Land the airplane and show the person through your conversation, expressions, and body language just how much fun you just had sharing your favorite pastime. Enthusiasm really is contagious.
Without asking, fuel up and take off again; don't ask if he or she would like to try it again. You know the answer to that! You will have entertained someone and that person will have learned, without discussing it—or heaven forbid, reading about it—transmitter control movement and control surface deflection; the effect of thrust and pitch on attitude and altitude; why the nose drops in a turn; and finally, why you like doing this so much!
I wrote last month about how fortunate we are to have Dr. Gordon Schimmel as part of the AMA's educational team. He and I have been exchanging e-mails concerning why we build model airplanes. What he wrote in our last exchange is something all should read:
"Building and flying model airplanes has been a gateway to aviation for legions of aviators and engineers from Wilbur and Orville Wright, who invented the first controlled, powered, man-carrying flying machine, to present-day inventors and pilots such as Burt Rutan, Paul MacCready, and five-time space shuttle commander Robert 'Hoot' Gibson.
"Almost every aeronautical principle and mechanical device keeping full-scale aircraft aloft can be found in a model airplane. The hands-on, practical nature of the hobby develops an in-depth understanding of how thrust must overcome drag to create lift, while maintaining control.
"Electric motors, piston and turbine engines operate within many of the same parameters as their full-scale counterparts. In addition, control surfaces must be aligned and properly coordinated and electronics must be precisely installed and maintained to enable safe and efficient flight.
"Throughout aviation history and up to the present day, models have been and continue to be used as proof-of-concept vehicles in full-scale aircraft design. Modeling is essential to math, science, and engineering, in fact, to all creative thinking. The model is metaphor, a way of understanding cause and effect, a context, an outcome.
"A theoretical construct in math that opens new understanding of the natural world, a biochemical representation that leads to new cures for disease, a three-dimensional representation of an aircraft to fly on Mars—all begin as models in the mind, an essential step in the creative process that provides scaffolds to understanding."
Model-building activities enable students to develop spatial intelligence and experience the serendipity that begins with trial and error, tempered by data collection and thoughtful reflection, leading to insight and discovery. Building and flying model aircraft are hands-on experiences to motivate and inspire a future generation of problem-solvers and inventors, opening doors to careers in aviation while helping them become active participants as citizens in a complex and fast-changing world.
Thanks, Gordon. If you're like me, reading that reminds you that you've experienced about all of it; you just didn't know it. While we are being entertained, sometimes education will just sneak up on us.
As we enter the holiday season, give the gift of Education Through Aviation!
Fly and have fun!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
