July 6-9, 2009

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We quickly emerged from the Chunnel and arrived in Paris. Although I had been once before, I got to see and do a lot of exciting new things. Paris is so much different than London, in good ways and bad, but it is fun to experience more than one culture on a trip. Although it is generally less inviting than the British, the French culture is one I have a deep appreciation for so I was happy to return to the city of Paris.

After the fast train ride we checked into our hotel and headed to the Louvre for a group cultural experience. The Louvre displays sucha wide variety of works of art from all different time periods andplaces all over the world. It’s a bit overwhelming to try to grip theimportance and historical value of everything you see. A few of thethousands exhibits included Michelangelo’s Dying Slave and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. I really appreciate the effort of Professor Kirton to make the cultural events part of the course. Not only have I learned a lot about aviation, but also I have broadened my global thinking.

On Tuesday we visited Musee de L’Air et de L’Espace. Filled with all kinds of aircraft, this museum was my favorite in France. The museum had everything imaginable, from man’s first flight in a balloon to full size Concorde jets. My favorite exhibit was the retired Air France Boeing 747-400. I had never been on a 747, and I got to see everything: the cockpit, cabins, cargo holds, wirings, and so much more. The effect of the Boeing 747 on civil aviation is almost immeasurable, and it was an extraordinary experience to study the aircraft inside and out.

On Wednesday (July 8), the group headed south of Paris to an Aerodrome at Cerny. It was quite a trek to this location, but it was a fun little adventure. After an hour on the train, we hiked up a hill for about 30 minutes in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, we were all happy about finding the airfield. The hangars were filled with old airplanes from the World Wars and other events, all of which were still flyable. An American working at the Aerodrome gave us a walking tour of the planes and answered all of our questions. He was very knowledgeable and his stories were fascinating. While eating lunch, a French Army helicopter landed at the field in the pouring rain, which was neat. After leaving Cerny we went back to Paris for our group picture at the Arc Du Triumph.

Thursday was our free day at Paris, and we accomplished a lot. A group of five of us visited Notre Dame, the Sacre Couer, Centre Pompidou, and the top of the Eiffel Tower. Each attraction was a little different, but I found all of them very interesting. Although they are quite close geographically, the cities of Paris and London feel worlds apart. I love both of them, but I still believe London ranks higher for me. Tomorrow however, we are switching it up again as we fly to Munich to begin our German section of the trip.

Au revoir from Paris,
Mack

July 1-5, 2009

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I blinked my eyes and just like that I as leaving for London. With a minor delay I left St. Louis and met some friends in Philadelphia for the transatlantic flight. After a very uncomfortable seven hour flight (I do not recommend US Airways transatlantic), we arrived at London-Gatwick airport and our EU Aviation Appreciation adventure began. From the airport we caught the Gatwick express to downtown London and followed the professor’s instructions to catch the tube (London Underground) to our hostel. Our room was extremely small with four beds squished into it, but we only needed the room for sleeping so we made it work.

The afternoon of our arrival (July 2), we all met at the British Science Museum for our first session. The museum has a great display of all different types of aircraft and parts. One of the most interesting planes was the Vickers Vimy (pictured), which was the first plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It was a larger plane for its day, and had some pretty impressive specifications. My other favorite display was a cross section cut out of a British Airways 747 jet. It interested me greatly to see all of the inner workings of the commercial aircraft. The next day (July 3), we headed off to the Imperial War Museum north of London. The train and bus rides to Duxford took a little while, but the wait was well worth it. My true love of aviation is in commercial aviation, and this museum had many commercial displays. I really enjoyed the British Oversees Airways Corporation (BOAC) BAC-VC10. I had never heard or read too much about this aircraft, but it was much bulkier than I expected it to be from pictures. It was like an MD82 on steroids with two extra engines. It was very different looking, but still very cool. Another plane I was surprised to see in Duxford was the Concorde. (Check out the picture of me by the Concord landing gear!) The exact Concorde at the Museum was never used commercially, but was one of the testing planes used by the production company. In its testing it had set the record speed and the record transatlantic flight time for all the Concords. Also in this museum was a de Havilland Comet 4, B52 bomber, and tons of other really neat planes. The Imperial War Museum was definitely my favorite in England. Saturday (July 4) came and we were off to the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon. Although military aviation interests me less, it was still top-notch. The displays in the museum were very interactive and held tons of good information. A lot of information was always appreciated as part of our work included filling out information sheets on aircraft and how they affected aviation and the world. With the information sheets completed we would gather and do short presentations on our favorite planes. This was an effective and simple way to grasp an understanding of how important these planes were to their country’s development and protection.

July 5 was a completely free day for us in London, along with every evening after our sessions. With a lot of time on our own, we got a lot accomplished. A friend of mine from the UK I had met many years ago in Antigua flew down to see me in London. She showed me so many neat things and we really had a great time. The list of things I saw in London includes: London Eye, Tower Bridge, Wax Museum, Wimbledon, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and so much more. I loved everything London had to offer, and I know I will be going back sometime. While we were there we also went to the West End (London’s Broadway) and saw the musical Chicago. Not only was the show great, but the guest star happened to be Jerry Springer! My friends and I waited after the show and got to meet him and get a picture with him, which was awesome. London was so amazing it will be hard to top. However we are about to head through the Chunnel, and I am anxiously awaiting Paris!

Cheers from London,
Mack

June 30, 2009

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I can hardly believe it is already time for my trip to Europe. Tomorrow I leave for what I hope will be one of the best experiences of my life. It is hard to believe May and June have already passed. I have done so much already this summer, so let me share a few of those things.

After getting back at the end of April, I spent most of the next month working. I got a lot of hours in at the restaurant and made a little bit of money. I also got to spend time with my friends from home on excursions such as camping on a farm and spotting at the St. Louis Airport. As soon as June rolled around, my summer went into hyper drive. My sister got married, my friend Derrick from ERAU came to visit, and I continued my working. I also got to go with my mother, sister, and new brother-in-law for a week to Jamaica. We stayed in Montego Bay and also got to visit Ochos Rios and Negril. I had a lot of fun at all of these things, but June went by way too fast.

When I arrived home from Jamaica I was thrown back into reality. My SS130 Online course (the Co-requisite for the EU Study Abroad) was up and ready to be started. I have not made it very far in the course, but the professor has been very understanding and will not make us do it while traveling abroad. My first impressions of taking a course online are mixed. I like moving at my own pace, but I do not like relying on the cooperation of technology to get it done. I ran into one issue while taking a quiz yesterday, but thankfully my professor is very understanding and the problem was resolved. I am going to have to work really hard when I get home from Europe to be able to catch up on this course.

As I said I leave tomorrow for London. I am meeting two friends in Philadelphia where we will catch our overnight flight to the UK. Here are some bits and pieces of all the exciting things I have planned for the next three weeks:

July 2-5 London
British Science Museum, Imperial War Museum, RAF Museum (including Bomber Command and Battle of Britain Museum), and a full day on our own!

July 6-9 Paris
The Louvre, Musee de l’Air et de l’Espace, Arc de Triomphe, The Aerodrome, and a full day on our own!

July 10-12 Munich
Flugwerft Schleissheim Museum, Duetches Museum, and a full day on our own!

July 13-14 Traben-Trarbach
Mont Royal Airfield for a Glider Flight

After this, we are free to do whatever we wish or to return home. I am certainly going to spend some extra time in Europe and see Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Milan. I will be officially returning home on July 21. Stay tuned for journals from each part of my journey!!! And as always, if you have any questions let me know by emailing me at meansm@erau.edu. Thanks for reading!

Until Next Time,
Mack

June 2009

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Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a good summer because I know I am!

This last week has been crazy busy at Ball. We’ve been working on a lot of new proposals and with my BIRST rocket program, there hasn’t been a lot of free time.

Last week my rocket team started to actually construct our payloads that will be put in the rocket. Before I had said we were launching little paratroopers out of the rocket, but we couldn’t find any that were the right size and could get in the time allotted. So small change in plans, we’re now launching little mini aliens out of the rocket, it seems rather appropriate to me! I’m mainly working on the payload which is going to launch out a Ball Aerospace flag but last week I got to help out on another group’s area, the pyrotechnic initiators. For those of you that don’t know what it is, a pyrotechnic initiator is the part of the rocket that sets off the charge to jettison a payload out of the main body. Also if you’ve seen a rocket with multiple stages, a lot of them use the same devices to separate. Two interns from my payload went to work with ULA to learn about how to construct these devices. It was a little intimidating at first to be playing with gun powder but when we got to try one out, it was sooo awesome! Our team is going to test them out on our payloads next weekend!

This last weekend a few interns decided we wanted to take advantage of being in Colorado. We found a place in the mountains we wanted to go and set off on a hike. Longs Peak is one of the taller mountains in Colorado and we knew we didn’t stand a chance to make it all the way up, but about 2/3 of the way is a lake at the base of the peak called Chasm Lake. We had to start pretty early because the afternoons are usually when the storms creep in and being on a mountain with lightning doesn’t sound like fun to me. One of my favorite parts was the snow! At one point we had to climb across an ice shelf that was on a hill. The snow was melting so it was pretty slippery, especially on the way back when the sun was high. It took almost 5 hours to get there and back! I’m hoping to get to climb a lot more before I leave since there aren’t any opportunities back at school.

I’ll keep you updated on my internship and rocket! We launch the end of July so I’ll have exciting things to report!

June 2009

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“Hello, world!” My name is Geoff Bruder, and I am a senior in Aerospace Engineering with an Astronautics concentration at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus. Since this is my first post, I’ll give you a little of my background and tell you some of the great things I have been able to do thanks to Embry-Riddle.

I have been interested in space and mechanical things as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of building cars and airplanes with legos and erector sets. I ended up indulging my mechanical curiosity by working on cars in high school. Since I wasn’t able to go straight to a university after high school I worked, and took classes at night. I worked as an auto mechanic and then, thanks to Broward Community College, an AutoCAD technician. While I was working, my aspirations were growing, and I set my sights on the stars, literally.

I did all my research and loved the fact that Embry-Riddle is a dedicated Aerospace university, where you can be immersed in the industry and culture. All of the course training and projects I have worked on here have led me to my current position. I am currently writing from Cleveland, Ohio where I work for NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) as an Aerospace Engineering intern.

Prior to this position, I worked at Kennedy Space Center with the Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP), then at GRC as a USRP intern. Being accepted into the NASA co-op program means I am now a federal employee, and will hopefully be able to transition to be a full time employee with NASA after graduation.

I work with the Thermal Energy Conversion Branch researching, analyzing, and testing Stirling power and cooling systems for spacecraft. My primary focus here has been on hardware for a robotic surface mission to Venus. In subsequent posts I will fill you in on all the gory details. Thanks for your attention, more to come in a couple weeks.

Geoff

June 2009

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Hello,
My name is Albane Flamant, I’m an international student from Mons, Belgium and will be starting next fall my senior year. In a little more than a week, I’ll be starting my internship back home in a local newspaper. I’m really excited about it: Even though I’m only a communication student without much experience, I’ll get to write small articles that will be published in a recognized newspaper. I’ve always had a passion for writing but I’ve only tried journalism recently. Last Spring, I spent a lot of my time working for the Avion, the university’s newspaper, as a reporter and an editor. Writing has always been a passion, and I love writing for the Avion. Despite the fact that I’m spending my summer back home in Belgium, I’m currently writing an article about campus for next week’s issue. This internship will hopefully better my writing. Here in Europe, the news writing style is a little different in terms of punctuation and paragraph structure. This will give me the opportunity to experience the European newsroom. It has taken me a while to get through the paperwork because of the language barrier and the cultural difference between the ERAU’s career services and the company hiring me for the summer, but I finally made it. Despite the fact I love writing, I will not probably end up being a journalist after I graduate. However, this will be a great work experience for me and it will enrich my resume and my portfolio. All fields I’m interested in require strong writing skills, and the articles I will write during my internship will be good samples to show potential employers.

So that’s it for this week… I’ll keep you posted on what happens on my first day. I should be running around the city with a notepad, a voice recorder and a camera. It should be interesting. Have a great week!

June 2009

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TGIF! One week into my internship and I am so ready for a weekend!

Just to recap, I’m working in the new business department of systems engineering at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, CO. It’s not what I expected (but then again I really had no idea what to expect) but it’s pretty sweet.

My department has a lot of engineers, even though it’s a little more business related, because of all the technical portions in potential contracts the company is bidding on. So basically when a company or the government wants something made they send out a bunch of information about what they need, all the requirements it needs to have, and the process to get it. It’s my department’s job to take all that info, ensure that we are able to competitively fulfill all that’s required, properly format it and ultimately send it back and wait to see if Ball gets the contract.

I’m learning this new program that is unlike anything I’ve ever worked with. It’s project management software; you can input information and manipulate it in a million ways to get the style of output you want. I’ve done some programming before so I’ve been able to develop some short cuts to make their process a little simpler since they do it over and over again.

I have to learn a new programming language because DOORS (the program) has its own language. It’s a little bit odd, one of the engineers I asked for help told me it was created in Europe and was designed for use in the European Space Agency. His theory is that the programmers were a little drunk while creating it because there are a lot of weird quirks about it and a lot of people have trouble with it, which made me feel better because it’s a steep learning curve!

Since I’ve been working, the Human Resources people have been awesome about scheduling tours for all the interns at various Ball facilities. We were able to look around the clean room a few days ago; inside I saw the WorldView-2 satellite under construction. I’m sure most of you have played around on Google maps at some point? Well WorldView-1 was created at Ball and it took most of the pictures for Google! Hurray for upgrades, who knows what this one will be capable of? We also had an intern picnic where they gave us free food, hurray! About half the interns are from Colorado schools, some are from Arizona and the rest are scattered. It’s nice to have a variety so no one really knows each other so we are all bonding pretty well.

Ball is teaming up with United Launch Alliance (ULA) in Denver and their interns are going to be building a rocket and the Ball interns are going to be building payloads for it! The rocket is supposed to go up at least 5000ft! The payload I’m working on isn’t going to be ejected from the body of the rocket and has over 5 cubic feet of room to work with, so brainstorming was difficult. Instead of trying to make some technological breakthrough (we only have 5 weeks to create the entire thing!) we decided to have some fun with it. I don’t know if anyone remembers those little green paratroopers that you would drop off staircases or balconies and the parachutes would deploy when you were a kid? Well my team is going to launch a ton of them out of the rocket as it descends after launch. We’re also working on dropping some modified smoke bombs out to help ULA with the wind directions to find the rocket after it lands. I’ll keep you updated on my team’s progress! We launch the end of July! There’s so much to get done before then!

May 2009

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Hello! I hope you all are enjoying the beginning of summer/end of the school year.

Last week I went to Washington, DC as a student traveler for the Citizens for Space Coalition. Every year the organization goes to DC to speak with government members and their staff to educate them on the importance of NASA’s human space flight programs. It was awesome, they paid for about 20 students from across the country to come together to help the 80ish space industry professionals. There were two other students from Embry-Riddle that also attended. I represented Minnesota because that’s my home state and other students represented where they are from. While I was there I met with lots of people, including aides from Congressmen Collin Peterson, Betty McCollum, Michele Bachman’s offices and Senator Amy Klobuchar, all from Minnesota. Here’s a picture of Amy and me. I also had the opportunity to talk with several from Oregon, Indiana, Illinois, Idaho, and South Carolina.

Walking through the capital buildings was so surreal. I’ve been to DC before, but always as a tourist. Members of the government had always seemed so far removed to me, like people you vote for and never really hear from again. It was awesome to be able to sit down with these people and talk about something I am passionate about, space flight.

I went to all these offices in a team of four and we each had our little parts to talk about. I discussed how important of an investment it is in our future to keep the Constellation and Shuttle programs fully funded. We’ve already spent so much money on both projects and to not continue allowing them to grow is a total waste of the money spent thus far. I also said that NASA is a source of national pride. I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie Apollo 11 but you can clearly see on those people’s faces how excited the entire country was! If we go to Mars or back to the Moon, maybe we can unite the nation towards that goal in these tight economic times. But enough rambling about why space rocks, because it does, but that’s beside the point.

After my trip to DC I spent a few days in Daytona saving my apartment from the random heavy rains. My parking lot had fish in it! It was ridiculous, but nothing was damaged so that was good. Now I’m in Colorado, I start my internship in a few days and I am so excited! I think I spoke a little about it before, but just to recap I’m going to be working in systems engineering at Ball Aerospace. It’s a really cool company; they worked on the Hubble and also the Deep Impact program. If you aren’t familiar with it, check out their website BallAerospace.com. Starting a new anything is always a little nerve racking but then again, it’s going to be new to everyone, not just me. I’ll post after my first day! Wish me luck!

May 2009

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Hey everyone! I’m glad you’re all interested in Embry-Riddle! It’s an awesome school and I love it here! I became interested in the space program when I was really young. I went to space camp when I was in elementary school and since then have wanted to become an astronaut. In high school I took an aviation class; my teacher mentioned the name Embry-Riddle and after that I knew that’s where I wanted to go to college. When I came to visit, I saw how everyone here loved aviation and aerospace and knew it was the place for me.

This summer I actually won’t be spending much time on campus. I will be very busy with a lot of other things. A few days ago I competed in the NASA Means Business competition (more on that later), I’ll be going to Washington D.C., to meet with government members and tell them why space exploration is important and to ask their support in funding the space program, and last but certainly not least, a systems engineering internship at Ball Aerospace in Colorado!

My NASA Means Business team and I have been working since last fall on a branding strategy, which is basically a marketing campaign, for NASA’s new manned space flight program, Constellation. For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet you definitely should! It’s going to be taking us back to the moon and onward to Mars! We were named finalists back in December and all the finalist teams were invited to Kennedy Space Center for the final presentations and some behind the scenes tours. It was really cool to see what all the teams had came up with and how different everyone’s ideas were. Sadly the competition overlapped with Riddle’s commencement ceremony and I wanted to see my friends graduate so I wasn’t able to go on the tours but my teammates said that went said it was awesome. They were able to go inside the vertical assembly building and also walk underneath the shuttle. We didn’t win but the winning team had a few similar ideas to ours so it was encouraging to know that the judges liked them.

I’ve been communicating with the HR representative at my internship via e-mail and I am so excited to start. There won’t be anyone else from Embry-Riddle with me; I think the majority of the other interns are from schools in Colorado, and a few from Cornell and Purdue. In the beginning of college all the general courses, like all the math and physics, got really boring but this year I’ve actually been able to start putting things I know into an aerospace prospective. Finally being able to apply it to engineering and see why all these classes were important will be sweet! I’ll write more after my trip and if you guys have any questions about school feel free to e-mail me at fossu15a@erau.edu!

May 6, 2009

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Hey guys. The spring semester has officially ended and I can’t wait for Summer A to start! Check-in for dorms started yesterday and continues thru today and classes begin tomorrow. I can’t wait for this summer. I already started having fun. The past two days I flew with friends to Tampa and visited Busch Gardens, walked around St. Petersburg and went to the mall in Brandon. It was a fun 2 days away from campus.

Classes last semester were awesome, especially grades. Finals went really well and were as smooth as possible. I will enjoy my all-female professor schedule for the summer and fall, haha. I am excited to take AT 200 (Air Traffic Management I) and BA 314 (Human Resource Management) for the first summer session. For BA 314, my professor already assigned us homework on Monday!

So far everything is going great. I move out of my room in McKay to my summer room in Adams. I am not looking forward to moving because I have so much stuff! It’s going to be a challenge and it has to get done. I will be a busy traveler this summer and also a studious student. I am going to enjoy the next few months as much as possible.

If you guys have any questions at all about anything at all, please feel free to email me. I appreciate the guys that have emailed me and I am glad to answer your questions. I am here to be a good resource for you guys so if can assist in any way please let me know. Tuition deposit was due May 1st, you can still make the deposit ASAP, and the housing deposit is due June 1st. Remember to file your FAFSA and contact admissions if you have any questions about the application or financial aid in general. I wish you guys luck in your admission process and hope to see you on campus in the fall.

Best wishes and safe skies,
Andre