D-Hangar Part 2

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At work this week, Gary (my new roommate and co-worker) and I disassembled the glare shield and side consoles in the cockpit. Our supervisor ran us through some engineering drawings and modifications before we started. One eighth of the D-hangar is full of mobile boards which hold open task cards, drawings, and paperwork for the maintenance techs to complete. DA uses an intricate system of distributing work using these boards, but it hasn’t failed them so far. One thing I have learned is that the paperwork must weigh more than the plane. Our job today was to disassemble the cockpit and access the area under the windscreen frame where the two side windscreens meet the two fronts. After that, the instructions asked us to drill holes to allow standing water to drain. The modification also incorporates a hose that leads to the lowest part of the aircraft belly. Most of the Dash 8s at DA already have this modification because most of the planes are parked outside. Any rain water that seeps through the windscreen seal will eventually corrode the metal and become unsafe. Over all it was a really fun project.

Monday, I had gloves holding on the tips of both of my ring fingers. This was the result of an accident which occurred while working on construction over the weekend. Tim, my lead technician for the day, noticed right off the bat and didn’t hesitate to crack a smile as well as a few jokes. Tim is a contractor working in the D-hangar with me. He and I started working at DA the very same day. Oddly enough, we actually met and went through HR at the same time, but never knew we would be working together. Tim has worked just about everywhere in the US, and on just about every commercial plane there is. His true passion though, lies with antique aircraft. Tim used to work on military aircraft restoration projects and can easily ID any old school plane out there. Tim also worked on military bomber aircraft during some of the wars, which I never got sick of hearing about during lunch time. Today, Tim and I removed the main landing gear wheels and even split the wheel halves apart to switch out the tires. We did this so that the tires that are still airworthy don’t dry rot and make flat spots while the plane sits on the hangar floor. The project required a lot of attention to detain and a focus on safety for everyone in and around the plane. Jacking up an aircraft of this magnitude was amazing to watch. The power of hydraulics is astounding.

Friday of last week I helped install a windscreen on one of the unairworthy planes sitting in the hangar. The plane will most likely become just an organ donor later down the line. I am glad it was my task card though, because today I was pulled out of D-hangar to do it again, only this time it was for real. A Dash 8 sitting on the ramp was getting close to its deadline for recertification. The windscreen was sent out for repairs weeks ago and was back, ready for installation. Installing a windscreen correctly is extremely important. Not following proper torque order, or the improper use of the tools, and your left with starting over. Worst of all, if the improper installation never gets reported, you’re looking at a convertible. Another tech watched me work and gave me some helpful tips for hand torqueing with a screw driver. I used valve grinding compound to get a better grip on the screw head. By the way, why are we using triwings?! Every screw head strips right out. Everyone I talk to hates this fact about the Dash 8. The tech and I ended up staying well past 5pm and got some overtime. The install took a while but was absolutely worth it. Quality Control (QC) knows my name now, and for good reasons.

The same plane from yesterday needs to be out of the hangar today. The managers working on the plane were running around double checking task cards and verifying paperwork. You could say I earned my stripes today working on such a time sensitive project. Whenever the managers needed work to get done, they came to me first. It felt great knowing they trusted me to do the jobs right the first time. Reviewing the maintenance manuals every morning and my training from ERAU is really paying off!

Today’s job was a conformity check. Trickling down the ladder from upper management today was an unusual request. The senior staff wanted a list of all the serial and part numbers for the GCU’s as well as some other items. I spent the whole day climbing through planes on the ramp and in the hangar, looking for numbers. It sure was an easy day, but different than my normal routine.

With the boots removed from the composite leading edges, I couldn’t help but think of Professor Billette back at school. He would go nuts if he saw these leading edges and their defects. Some of the cracks and holes exposed Kevlar layers, composite materials that I got to work with in his class. This is just one more reason why the training at ERAU for my A&P was the right choice. I prepped the boots for repairs and sent them to the composite shop. That was cool to see.

I got to work on prop assemblies today! I disassembled the hubs and removed each individual prop so that the parts could be shipped overseas to the DA aircraft currently in operation. You know it’s a fun day when you need a forklift to access what you’re working on.

Karl, the president of DA, owns a DC-3 named “Miss Virginia”. This specific plane has been in his family for years and was one of their original aircraft his dad flew when he owned the company. Every year, Karl’s team of technicians get the plane ready for Oshkosh. For weeks all the interns except me, have been scraping nasty old insulation from the interior side of the aircraft skin. Something about it being a fire hazard was the reason for starting the whole project. After about day three, all the interns were complaining about their hurt fingers and how boring the plane was. I made sure to never say a word about the subject. After about a week, I was pulled in to the hangar with the DC-3 and was needed to help install a prestart oil pump for the massive radial engines it has. I pretty shocked I wasn’t scraping insulation that day. I calmly looked over the paperwork for the STC and some drawings an engineer for DA drew up. I knew right off the bat it wasn’t going to work. Before my current job, I used to install propane tanks and lines for my father’s company. I have climbed through some of the tightest and hottest attacks in Florida. Running hoses and lines through tight and irregular spaces quickly became my specialty. I knew this pump location in the wheel well wasn’t going to work. I was able to describe to my lead a better way to route the lines and a more feasible location of the pump. Keeping AC 43.13 general rules in mind, thank you Mr. Beckwith, The other techs loved the idea and it became “my” project. By the end of the week we had the lines and pumps installed, electrical wire routed, and the ops checked “OK”. I guess I owe my dad for this one.

My next project on the DC-3 was oxygen system removal. I removed all the oxygen lines running under the floor boards back to the servicing port at the trail edge wing root on the left hand side. This was especially difficult with everyone trying to restore the insulation and renovate the interior. I had finally pulled the last line of tubing through its rubber grommets when the line jerked and my back quickly bumped into something. That something happened to be a box full of assorted rivets. I can’t describe to you the sound of hundreds of rivets flying through the air and hitting the metal skin belly of the DC-3. The entire hangar, full of more than 80 technicians and everyone in the plane went silent! My body froze. It felt like 5 minutes had passed before the last ricocheting rivet lay to rest on the floor of the plane. Finally it was over. “Gravity ops check OK” shouted out the first technician willing to break the silence.  “Thank goodness someone said something” I thought to myself. Not to mention something quite hilarious. Most of the guys around me chuckled. I cleaned up the mess which took a while to do, and left the plane to take a short break and clear my head. 10 minutes later I was back to work, cracking a smile, and taking the beatings of jokes I surely deserved.

My last job on the DC-3 was yesterday. I was tasked with greasing all the control cables leading to the empennage. It was a fun job because no one else could do it. To grease the cables in the tail you have to bend around so many things, other cables being one of them. After that, I had to maneuver myself over the structural box containing the tail wheel. I wish I had a photo of how tight the area was. This whole week working on the DC-3 has been amazing. I will never forget the 200+ fasteners and work it took to install those two fuel tank belly panels. So many great stories were made this week.

It’s my last week! The parts department of the D-hangar has employed me these last couple of days to help track and fill out parts tags for everything inside the parts cage and conex. My writing hand is about to fall off it’s so tired. Looking back at this summer, I have done some really interesting projects and learned a ton about aircraft maintenance, so much more than if I had stayed in Daytona for the summer. If I had to choose my favorite part of it all, I would hands down choose the people I worked with and met. Without the guys from work like Tim, Aaron, Ricky, the entire sheet metal and interiors department, including my roommate Gary, this internship wouldn’t have been anywhere near as enjoyable or informational. I learned so much this summer and it’s mostly because of these guys I now call friends. If I don’t come back to Virginia to work, I hope I find an employer with as many motivated and down-to-earth employees as I found here at DA. This internship has truly been an amazing life and career experience and I would absolutely do it again.

New Building, Homecoming, Weekend Shenanigans, and Neutron Stars

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Greeting, readers!

It seems like it’s been forever since my last post – I’ve got a lot to cover!

Me with my poster, standing in what we think is going to be a chemistry lab.

First things first, I should talk about the Board of Trustees tour in the new COAS building that I’ve mentioned was coming up. It was pretty anti-climatic actually. We stood in a lab next to our posters (each lab had a poster) and the board walked past without much more than a glance – it was over in about ten minutes! A couple stopped to ask questions, but most just commented on the name of my lab (ECLAIR – brilliant, right?) and asked if we were excited for the new building. Nonetheless I got to walk around and take some pictures of the new building (at least one hallway on the first floor), and I talked to an astronaut on our board of trustees. Any day I get to talk to an astronaut is a good day. Not that we talked about space or anything, but still. Pictures from inside the building below!

 

Picture of a really cool ribbon dance at the Diwali show.

That weekend I went to the Diwali show put on by the Indian Student Association, which was super cool. I am preparing for a trip to India in May (and just got my Visa today!) so it was really neat to see some of the culture. Also did some shopping at the Halloween store – the best time of year is right after Halloween when all the cool stuff at the Halloween store is half price. Plus that weekend was “semi-annual time travel night” AKA daylight savings (c’mon, which sounds cooler?) so we all got an extra hour of sleep! Best night of the year. As a result, a bunch of clocks on campus (and in my apartment, because I can’t be bothered to change them) were running an hour ahead that week and my internal clock was very confused.

Last week was homecoming week, which doesn’t mean much to me because I’m not a sports person, but it’s a pretty neat week around campus. Different clubs on campus make big sculptures of random stuff (“spirit signs”) and do some really cool chalk art drawings out on the sidewalk. Unfortunately it rained before I could get pictures of them :(. There is also a concert, a carnival, and a comedian every year. I didn’t attend the first two things (nor the homecoming game – to be honest I don’t even know which sport it was this year…), but I did go see the comedian, Demitri Martin, and he was hilarious. Riddle always manages to get some pretty big names for comedians and bands and such for events like this. In the last couple years we’ve had Bo Burnham and Jim Gaffigan for homecoming comedians, and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and All American Rejects for the spring concert.

I don’t have enough pictures for this entry, so here’s a giant cookie I made this weekend. Just because.

I had a fairly productive three day weekend. The end of the semester is nigh, and as a result I have a big pile of projects. The last month or so of the semester is always crazy. I keep telling myself I’m going to start working on things before the last week, so we’ll see if that actually happens. Though I did already do some research for my software engineering research paper, which is a big head start! My advice for college: Don’t procrastinate on end of the semester projects! You will have sleepless nights and you will regret it.

Also this weekend I went to see the new Thor movie, which was awesome. I definitely recommend it! Any movie that has spaceships AND medieval sword-fighting stuff gets two thumbs up in my book.

In other news, I’ve been starting to talk about my thesis with my research advisor, which is crazy. But definitely exciting at the same time. I will probably continue my work with Martian atmospheric gravity waves. We have definitely had some success with the vertical wind calculations over topography – and Mars certainly has some interesting topography! As far as a topic goes, I really have no idea. I will just have to see what comes to me I suppose… good thing I still have a couple years ahead!

The next couple weeks are definitely going to be busy, but Thanksgiving break is just around the corner, and I’m fortunate to get to go home again this year. It will be nice to escape and get some time in the snow (hopefully)! Though the weather has been great here – it’s finally starting to cool down. Once you survive the heat of April – October, the rest of the year in Florida is fantastic. Plus if you come from somewhere cold, everybody back home gets super jealous in December and January.

Photograph by National Geographic Channels/ Nate Evans
CGI IMAGE: The Neutron Star sucks up the Earth in bits and pieces.

I didn’t talk much about academics this post, so allow me to share some cool stuff that I’ve been learning in my astronomy class… So after a star dies it sometimes leaves behind what is called a neutron star, and these stars are super dense – they basically pack the entire mass of the sun into an area smaller than Colorado. If you had a piece of neutron star the size of a paperclip, it would be so heavy that, not only would you not be able to pick it up, but it would fall through the ground and out the other side of the Earth. Then it would turn around and fall back the way it came. It would keep doing that until the Earth was essentially destroyed. Cool, eh? In fact, last year National Geographic did a show about what would happen if a neutron star was headed toward Earth and we had to save the human race – and part of it was filmed here on campus! Here is a link to a local news article.

Speaking of space, this weekend I’ll be going down to Kennedy Space Center to see Bill Nye give a talk about space! How cool is that? And thanks to my season pass it won’t cost me a dime.

That’s all I can think of to talk about this time around. I should mention that I got my first ever email from a reader – so I know that at least one person is actually reading my random ramblings. Which is awesome! If there are more than one of you, the rest should definitely feel free to email me any questions you have about ERAU. Give me some ideas of what you’d like me to write about in these entries. Or, y’know, just send fan mail. 😀

Until next week, folks!

-Lynsey

SchroeL2@my.erau.edu

From the Cockpit Desk of Kyle Ludwick

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In front of the Riddle AMS Gulfstream III.

Hey guys!  Being a student at the world’s leading institution in aviation studies is quite the task, and also quite an honor.  The experiences and opportunities that students get here are unbelievable and it’s awesome to be a part of it.  Growing up as a kid I always wanted to have that big desk in the corner office, but my first love was flying, and here at Riddle I can pursue both!  I’m an Aviation Business Administration major here at the Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach campus and also have my Commercial Pilot multi-engine and single engine ratings.    Learning the “Business of Flight” here at the College of Business and juggling many other tasks makes life hectic, but there’s no other way I would want it.  Many long days are put in as I am also a Student Government Representative for the COB, a COB Student Advisory Board member, and a student assistant in the COB Dean’s Suite.  Like I said before, students at Riddle get some amazing opportunities, like the chance to tell all of you about my experiences through this blog.  I hope you all enjoy it and continue following my journey through my junior year down here in Daytona Beach!

Kyle

When Are We Ever Going to Use That?!

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How many times as a high school student did you say, “When are we ever going to use that?!”  I know I must have said it hundreds of times, and even say it sometimes now as a junior in college!  When you look back on it, it’s all about gaining a specific way of thinking so to speak, and all of the hard work you put in is definitely worth it.  Thinking back, I can remember many Calculus lectures with Mr. Paul Keller and many days in AP Anatomy with Dr. Lance Brand back at Delta High School asking myself why on earth would we ever need to learn this stuff, but it all comes down to learning to put your nose to the grindstone and grit your teeth to finish the job.  As a student in Mr. Glaze’s engineering classes in high school, I often wondered why we needed to keep such organized class work and practice our class presentations so often, but those are things that I do every day here at Riddle.

Presenting the 2010 Delta High School IMSTEA SuperMileage entry as a junior in high school.  I never thought that I would carry that presentation experience into my daily college career!

As a student leader here, I often speak in front of peers and faculty members about many various topics and the experience gained in high school makes it that much easier every time the opportunity arises.

Another example of mine that I use often is my career in racing.  I have worked as a driver coach and tuner in karting for a few years now after a short, successful driving stint and I must say that, even though aviation and racing might not be the same industries at all, they are quite similar! Management and interpersonal skills are key in both arenas and I carry experiences from my flying over to the race track and vice versa.

I would have never imagined that racing would have taught me so many other useful skills that I use in my daily life. Here I am driver coaching at a national kart race in early 2013.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this blog as much as I have, and next time you wonder when you’re ever going to use what you learned by doing that 10 page research paper you dreaded so much, just think about the set of skills you carried away from it to put to good use in the future.

Happy flying!

Kyle

Pipers and Preparations

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Hello Reader,

Thanks for stopping by the blog page again, I’m quite certain all of my fellow writers here will agree that we appreciate the opportunity to share our lives with you. I received a few emails from folks who read my first post and it was a blast to respond to their questions and welcome them here.

I should introduce myself more fully.

My full Name is Zachary Benjamin Wilkinson and I was born in Bradenton, Florida on November 4th 1992. (That makes today my 21st birthday) Happy Birthday to me! My Hometown is under the Northern shelf of class C airspace at ‘KSRQ’ for those of you who are aviation-inclined. Follow the link to look it up on skyvector. I did my first flying out of Cirrus Aviation at Dolphin Aviation, the FBO there. The tail number of the first plane i flew was N393SP.

From a young age I grew up amazed at the wonder of transportation and adventure. My bookcase was filled with storybooks about planes, trains, ships, and automobiles.  I built articulated flying creations of Legos and K’nex and i would imagine them cruising across the wide expanse of my living room. It wasn’t long before my eyes picked the sky as my favorite method of getting from point A to point B. My father always encouraged me to take steps  wherever I wanted in life, in this case my steps were towards the local airport for a discovery flight. Not long after that I heard about Embry-Riddle, and the rest is history. Other things that interest me are Model Building, Paintballing, Videogames, Reading, kayaking, fishing, and Hiking.

 

1) PIPERS

On October 31st  I passed my In-house Checkride for the Single Commercial course, it was a great start to an exhilarating Halloween Day. I awoke to the sound of my alarm at 0500 to prepare for activity start time of 0630. This portion of my checkride would consist of an Emergency approach to landing, an emergency descent, short field takeoffs and landings, and soft-field takeoffs and landings. All in a PA-28r-201, lovingly known as the Piper ‘Arrow’.  I leave plenty of extra time to prepare for a flight just in case something comes up before start time. A tip for the current flyers or pilots-to-be: always give yourself plenty of time buffer before an activity in case something comes up, because you never know when something will occur that will slow you down and cause you to be late. A realistic example of this is faced by any pilot when it comes to Cross-Country operations.

2) PREPARATIONS

In-flight fuel use is predicted based on an expected  ‘per-hour’ burn recorded in the POH of any aircraft. Also, the airspeed you travel at aloft is relative to the winds at your cruising altitude. Before a flight we as pilots are trained to research the forecasted winds aloft  and determine an expected groundspeed. This data will allow us to have an idea of how much fuel will be needed to complete the flight. Fuel burn and time aloft is critical. Do you see a theme amongst my italicized words?

The number one cause of Aviation accidents and incidents is Fuel starvation or improper fuel management.

Once  inflight the actual conditions could be much different. Sometimes a headwind will be greater or a tailwind much less than expected. A diversion for weather could be required, lengthening your route. Traffic along your route could restrict you to a different altitude than planned, changing many factors of flight.  If under IFR ATC delays or holding could leave you in the air for much longer than you expected. If not prepared with ample additional fuel a pilot could be quickly thrust into an emergency situation. The least of your worries is being caught with less than your legal fuel reserves as required per 14 CFR §91.151 for VFR flight. A long lesson put short is, expect the unexpected. You may go through 500 hours of flying without a single incident but one day something will go wrong and extra preparation will suddenly be worth it. It could even save your life.

Only a little bit of extra time is required before flight to ensure you are properly prepared. If you are new to aviation or just beginning, then now is the time to make preparation a habit. The sooner you start the better. Expect the unexpected and  you will always be fit with the confidence that you are prepared. All of the factors in red above are just in-flight circumstances. In everything we do we can encounter slowdowns, changes of plans, delays, missed assignments, and hardships. We must be ready for when those times come.

Many joys of flight await you here at ERAU or wherever you reside. If you feel led to the sky, start your journey today. Look up your local airport and schedule a discovery flight much like I did back home in Sarasota. Once you know it’s for you, then please  ask me about flying at Embry-Riddle.

My email is always open: wilkinsz@my.erau.edu

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will always long to return”

–Leonardo Da Vinci

 

My favorite Airliner, the Boeing 757-200. You could say I’m a dreamer.

 

 

 

Fall Break Fun (Plus Everything Since)

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I’m running out of creative ways to start these entries. Generic greetings are so boring…

My shiny Charizard, Deimos. Named after one of Mars’ moons 🙂

We left off last time right before fall break, so you’re probably dying to know what I did for that long, 4-day weekend. In short, I really didn’t do anything. I caught up on sleep, played Pokemon Y (I hatched a shiny charmander – if you know what that means, I know you’re jealous), watched some Breaking Bad, and took some time to just chill and forget about school. It was glorious, apart from being sick for most of the break. But thanks to my friends orange juice and NyQuil, I was able to bounce back pretty quickly.

My new bookshelf (well, CD/DVD/Spaceship shelf) from IKEA on the left, along with my new Gravity poster 😀

The only real exciting thing I did over the break was spend some time in Orlando on Saturday. After waking up at about noon, I read on Facebook that Buzz Aldrin was doing a book signing in Kissimmee at 1 PM – well it was 1 PM when I read that post! So I took the quickest shower of my life, hopped in my car, and booked it to Orlando. We called when we were at about downtown Orlando to see if it was still going on, and it wasn’t. 🙁 I was pretty bummed about that, especially because his book is about the future of space travel (i.e. Mars). So since we were in Orlando anyways, we spent the day at IKEA, ate some cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory, and ended the evening playing some games at Dave N Busters – and I won a telescope. 😀 I have yet to see anything interesting with it though, it’s probably worth about $20; but still.

The week after a break is never fun. Especially the first couple days when you haven’t really recovered the motivation you left behind. But somehow I found the strength to get back into school-mode. Which was good, because I had my EP 501 midterm – and boy, was that an experience. I don’t think I’ve ever studied so much for a test in my life. Grad classes are scary because you have one exam and one final, so if you mess up the midterm chances are that your grade is doomed. I managed to scrape out a 90, which I’m very proud of (I would have hung the exam on my fridge except that my professor doesn’t give them back). Not to brag, but I’m 6 for 6 on exams this semester, which means this is my best semester yet – including freshman year! I have two more exams this week, in Spaceflight Dynamics and Thermodynamics, so hopefully I’ll be able to maintain the streak… fingers crossed.

Spring semester schedule. i.e. “Death by Physics”

Spring semester registration is now upon us! At least for the honors students – that’s one of our perks: we get to register before everybody else. So that means first dibs on the good professors. (I think I might be obligated to say that every single professor at Embry-Riddle is one of the “good professors.”) Of course it doesn’t really matter for me; I think I mentioned last time that every single class I am taking next semester only has one option, so my schedule is essentially made for me. Oh well, less work required on my part. This was also the first semester since I switched majors that I’ve been able to register online without it throwing an error at me for one or more classes and having to go sort it out with records! And the timings seem to work out very nicely – it’s just the classes that are going to kill me!

The new building is almost done and it’s beautiful – and it’s all mine! And, y’know, the rest of the physics/human factors/business/etc. students and faculty.

I also mentioned last time about the new College of Arts and Sciences building. All of my classes will be in there, and the lab I work in…. I wonder if I can just live there too? I am giving the presentation about our new lab to the Board of Trustees on Friday, so you’ll hear about that in my next entry.

Speaking of presentations, this past weekend I was asked to be on a student panel at the open house – so, any prospective students reading this, if you were there you probably saw me. I felt pretty honored to have been asked, which is why I was willing to wake up so early to be there (I don’t even wake up that early for classes!) I got to tell my story about choosing Riddle (my first entry – if you haven’t read it) to a whole bunch of people, so it was pretty cool. Then I went home and went back to bed for a little bit before lending my evening to freshmen who wanted help planning out their spring semesters.

My boyfriend and I with Echosmith (we are the two in the middle – it might be hard to tell because the band is our age!) They were really flattered when I told them we were at the concert specifically to see them. I suppose as openers they don’t get that a lot.

On Sunday I got to go to another concert! We went to see the opener, Echosmith. I’m pretty sure I talked about them in my entry about Warped Tour – they are all siblings that are age 14-20. And they’re awesome. The downside about them being the opener, is that we missed most of their set! 🙁 Orlando had some carnival or something going on so a lot of the streets downtown were closed and we couldn’t figure out how to get to the venue. But we caught their last two songs, which were really good, and then got to chat with them a bit after they played – which is the upside of them being an opener. There were three other bands playing; the second was For the Foxes, who weren’t really my cup of tea, but one or two of their songs were pretty good. Then The Downtown Fiction played, who I’ve had on my iTunes library but never really listened to aside from just shuffling the whole library. But they did play one song of theirs that I really like, along with some other I recognized. I also got to meet them, and got them to sign an album for me. The headlining band was Tonight Alive, a band from Australia. They were awesome! It turned out to be a really fun show, especially since we just went to see the opener. I got a signed copy of Tonight Alive’s album too (so I now have 9 signed CDs in total, plus 2 signed vinyls).

There is another concert I want to go to this Saturday, In This Moment, but nobody will go with me so I suppose I’ll sit this one out and save the money. But I only say that because I’ve seen them before and they haven’t released any new music since then. It’s really awesome how many bands play Orlando – I’ve been to more concerts since starting school at Riddle than the rest of my life combined. And that’s not counting the ones freshman year I would have gone to had I had a car.

One of my Bitstrips from last night. Hehe.

I discovered this super entertaining Facebook app called Bitstrips, where you make a cartoon of yourself and can put yourself in little comics with cartoon versions of your friends. There are some really funny comic templates, and my Facebook friends are probably sick of me posting them, but I don’t care because I think they’re hilarious. Although my parents and aunts started making them too, and everybody knows that parents ruin anything cool on the internet.

I think that’s about it for my life nowadays. I haven’t made too much progress on my research, mostly because I’ve been spending a good chunk of my lab time working on the poster for the Board of Trustees presentation. I have to write a major research paper about software development processes for my SE 500 class, so I plan to get working on that soon… I haven’t written a paper in about a year so I’m actually kind of looking forward to it; writing is definitely one of my strong suits (and for some reason I decided to be a physicist.)

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but with all the prospective students who might start reading this, I’ll say it again: Ask me questions! I’m happy to answer anything about ERAU, especially about the Engineering Physics program. Or, y’know, just send me fan-mail telling me how awesome I am. Email me at schroel2@my.erau.edu, or you can probably find me on Facebook pretty easily. I don’t bite 🙂

Until next time….

-Lynsey

Machin’ through Maximum Operating Altitude.

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Modeling for sponsor Scheyden Precision Eyewear
Ayrton Senna said it perfectly: “On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, ‘Okay, this is the limit’. And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

What a few weeks it’s been! Classes have been the usual, various club meetings taking place, and I am progressing through my Commercial over at ATP. This past weekend was Fall Break and my mom came to Orlando to visit. It was nice to have San Diego come to me for a few days. 🙂 This upcoming week is Homecoming and you know what that means! The Annual Sigma Sigma Sigma Halloween Fashion Show! This Wednesday, Oct 30 at 8pm in the Student Center. Be sure to get your ticket early!

First off, what is Maximum Operating Altitude? It’s the highest altitude an airplane can reach for structural or pressurization reasons. An airplane could go higher toward ‘absolute altitude,’ however, the equipment will not allow it. After hearing this quote from Senna this past week, I was reminded of the limitations I even continue to place on myself. We all have these ‘maximum operating altitudes’ we place on ourselves and most of us don’t even know it. And those limits are present in our everyday thoughts: “That’s too hard.” “I’m too lazy.” “I can’t do this.” “I can’t do that.” But, once you put yourself in a constant pattern of limitation, you place yourself in a fixed state of being. You can’t grow. Limits are these evil things that we all fear because we are too afraid, too lazy, too comfortable to break them. The reality of it is the fact that these limits are self-imposed. The only limits you have are the ones you set yourself. No one else has the power to give you limits- but you. You choose them. You have the ability to make a choice and say, “this is my maximum operating altitude, I’m done” OR you can equip yourself with the determination to go a little further.

  Courtesy of Scheyden Precision Eyewear
Most of us think we have reached our limit when we fail to realize a simple extra push is all it takes to break that barrier. An airplane has to be equipped properly or else it physically cannot push through its maximum operating altitude. You have the potential to break through your limits if you allow yourself to be equipped with determination, passion, perseverance and most importantly: belief. A limit is not a limit until you give it the power to be one. You can let your maximum operating altitude defeat you, or you can choose to overcome it. Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it. What’s keeping your throttle at idle?
And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/ayrtonsenn348838.html#SWHjPf6isLgih0u2.99
And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/ayrtonsenn348838.html#SWHjPf6isLgih0u2.99
✈

Halloween in France, Engineer in the fog and cooking fail

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Hey Everyone,
Happy Halloween! This is one of my favorite times of the year because A) college students have the best crazy costumes and B) chocolate and other candy can be purchased in individually wrapped packages in quantities of 5 lbs. or more. Eating 8 fun-sized Kit Kats is totally healthier than eating one normal sized bar, right? In the picture below, we have one Gumby, two pimps, one communist, two hillbillies, one Viking, and that one robot guy from all of the LMFAO music videos.

Some of my friends freshman year, taken by Carolyn Kiss.

I also love seeing people in costume in class. My sophomore year, I sat next to a guy in a zombie outfit during Calc 3. Since it was dark in the mask, he kept on falling asleep. His head bobbed up and down as it sunk lower and lower to the desktop. Our professor, Dr. Mancas, startled him to wake him up. Funniest thing ever.

Nuit Blanche 2013 logo, from http://www.paris.fr/pratique/culture-patrimoine/nuits-blanches/p6806

At the beginning of October, all of Paris comes together to celebrate a night of art and culture. Nuit Blanche, white night, means essentially a night without darkness, which is what the French call an all-nighter. From about 7pm until dawn, the entire city is alive with the sounds of the cinema, concerts, and dance clubs. The sky is colored with lights from art exhibits, from the windows of galleries as light spills onto the sidewalks, and fireworks along the Seine. Groups of people walk the streets playing music from their home countries on drums, others rollerblade throughout the city, zipping back and forth from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Since my friend Scott and I had nothing else to do that Saturday, we decided to check out Nuit Blanche. I did a bit of research beforehand and so I had an idea of where everything was located and what I most wanted to see. There was this Frog sculpture created by a Japanese artist named Fujiko Nakaya that seemed very interesting. My thought was that it would be really cool to see a giant lit up frog sculpture in the middle of the Place de la République. I also thought that it would be nice to grab dinner at this crêpe restaurant in the Latin Quartier on the other side of the Seine. Since Scott didn’t want to spend too much money on metro tickets, we ended up walking roughly 2 miles to go from the restaurant to Place de la République. When we finally arrived after about 45 minutes of walking, we immediately started searching the place for the frog sculpture. We looked and we looked and we looked. We found this huge misting machine, which was pretty neat because it placed so many water droplets in the air, it almost completely blocked out light form the street lamps and there was only about 10 feet of visibility, but it was no giant, flowing frog. After 20 minutes of playing about in the mist and searching, I realized that I had misread the program for Nuit Blanche. I read frog instead of fog. It turned out that the interesting mist machine that was smack dab in the middle of the Place de la République was the Fog Square sculpture created by Fujiko Nakaya. Wow, I could not believe that I had misread the program sooner. I felt so silly. Scott thought it was hilarious.

Fog Square, created by Fujiko Nakaya, photo taken by Scott Schimmel.

Me standing in the fountain, taken by Scott Schimmel.

This next bit is about the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie. Scott, Alessandro, and I actually visited the science center way back in August, but I finally just got the photos from Alessandro last week and journal entries can be boring without photos. I thought it would be like the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington, which is really cool because it is interactive and a lot of fun. Overall, this interactive science museum was kind of mediocre, maybe because it was aimed at a younger age group or maybe because some of the exhibits were not very interesting. However, one exhibit was actually neat because it had to do with outer space and satellites. The largest attraction was a Vulcain rocket engine.

Vulcain is a group of first stage rocket engines designed by the European Space Agency for the Ariane 5 rocket, which is designed to deliver payloads in low Earth orbits and geostationary transfer orbits. The Vulcain engine uses liquid oxygen/ liquid hydrogen cryogenic fuel. It brings back fond memories of EGR 101 that I took during my freshman year at ERAU. The task was for us to design a rocket in order to deposit and satellite into space. It was pretty fun, I designed the launch sequencer and my roommate, Jackie, designed the umbilical system and fuel tanks on the rocket. Anyways, I digress. I was surprised by how large the engine was and the fact that I could have touched it with my bare hands if I wanted to. The French are pretty relaxed about these types of things; the zoo I visited during the summer had very small fences that were close enough so that people could touch the animals if they tried.

Me and Vulcain rocket engine, taken by Alessandro.

“Duct tape and Velcro are the two most important tools for space crews” – Jean-François Clervoy, an astronaut for the ESA. Please ignore my dorky pose, taken by Alessandro.

Last Monday, we had a bit of unexpected free time and ended up adding a story to my book of cooking horror stories. Our four hour long 8AM class was canceled because the lab we were assigned did not have the software necessary to complete our work. Naturally we didn’t know this until we walked into class. Since we were all up and awake (mostly) with nothing to do, we ended up going to Aymeric’s, Laura’s boyfriend’s, house to make lunch. Since I didn’t fully understand the rapid-fire French going around me, I just kind of went with the flow. We ended up making a vegetable lasagna, pretty simple and pretty easy to get right, right? Wrong.

This lasagna recipe used 200g (two blocks) of chevre cheese, 3 jars of pesto, parmesan cheese, dried green onions, and pasta. Please note, that I do not know much about cooking for French cuisine. I thought the list of ingredients was strange, but I did not say anything because I did not want to be impolite. The first mistake was the quantity of ingredients that we used. The second mistake was not cooking the lasagna noodles before placing them in the pan. The lasagna was horrible! The parmesan cheese on top burned, the noodles were crunchy and raw, and the entire thing was swimming in oil. This guy named Martin bent of spoon trying to separate squares for everyone. The only person who finished their portion was the mastermind of the whole operation, Aymeric. I took a bite or two in an attempt to be polite and was relieved when I saw that everyone else had stopped eating too. We have since decided that Aymeric is no longer allowed to cook, ever.
Well, that’s all folks, I’ll write again in about two weeks. As always, thank you for reading.
-Brenna

An Aeronautical Science Lifestlye

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Morning pre-flight

Hello reader,

My name is Zachary Wilkinson and I am the new guy on this page. I am a Junior living Aeronautical Science here at the DB campus. I said living because ‘studying’ simply doesn’t cover it. For me this degree is indeed a lifestyle, and I work to learn more every day.If you are considering this degree or are currently practicing it, then let me share a little bit about what I feel makes an AS student successful.

Number one:  You must be willing to go the extra mile to learn

Your activity doesn’t cease once you exit the classroom or leave the Flight operations building. From day one the standard expected of you is that of a professional pilot. So make it an objective to spend some time at the end of the day to think about what you have learned in your classes and how it can be applied, application is a higher level of learning. My favorite way to actively increase my Aeronautical knowledge is to read aviation related books. I believe that the more perspectives I can gain for myself the better prepared I will be for when I encounter something new. If you don’t like reading, then you will have trouble, because the amount of information you must know just for the Private Certificate is very extensive. The FAA and our library has all kinds of great publications.

Furthermore, The Flight program here at Embry-Riddle is more than just about hours and airplanes. You also accept the safety culture of ERAU and the standards of the best Flight University in the world. The reality is that only about  60% of first-year AS students remain in this degree program. Don’t let that statistic scare you, let it prepare you. Many students find out that the degree just doesn’t suit them, they switch degrees, and continue happily with their change. There is nothing shameful in choosing what is better for your future.

Number two: Be humble

The fastest way to end up sidelined is thinking that you are ‘God’s gift’ to the aviation industry. At this university you are blessed to be surrounded by professors and instructors who have decades of experience. Respect them, get to know them,  and learn from them. Also, Think on this quote for a while:

“Every pilot is a student pilot, whether ten hours or ten thousand”

—Robert Parke

The FAA has compiled a list of Hazardous attitudes which can make a pilot dangerous. They are: Resignation, Anti-Authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, and Macho. You can tackle Invulnerability, Macho, and Anti-Authority by being a humble learner as long as you operate and aircraft. You will find it interesting to know that the most dangerous pilot is not a young student pilot with less than a hundred hours. That student pilot is most likely a bit nervous still, he or she is cautious, they may be afraid the airplane could rip apart at any moment due to the blistering 100 kt. cruise speeds. Simply put, They are humbled by the aircraft. The most dangerous Pilot  is the one who is comfortable, they likely have over 1,000 hours and operating an aircraft is second nature to them. This is when danger can set in.

Number three: Be of Good character

“Experience is plentiful and easy to buy, but Character is Priceless” —Calvin Coolidge

The leaders of best companies the industry are not just looking for a pilot to fill a seat with minimum qualifications, they are looking for a well rounded individual who can be trusted with $100 million dollars of liability. A pilot with Integrity of character will be highly sought after and your decision making skills will be evaluated. For example, It is very common for Air carriers  to look into you before you even set foot in an interview. Things like Background checks, reference checks, and even credit checks are done. They may even browse your facebook page. When they look into how you manage your life as a whole and it will tell them a lot about how you will perform as an operator of their aircraft. Make yourself employable and as always, be careful with how you portray yourself on Social Media. Nothing is secret.

Number four: Love what you do

“Science, beauty, freedom, adventure; what more could you ask of life?”

—Charles Augustus Lindbergh

I think this would qualify as the most important of the list. The road ahead will not be easy, that is why you must be absolutely certain that this is something you want to do. Flying has to be important enough for you to be willing to retrain an activity 10 times and still put on your ramp badge and walk out onto the flightline and be ready give it another shot. The inner drive that wakes you up at 5 AM for a flight and keeps you awake till 3 AM on weekends making lesson plans is a Love for what you do.

One of my favorite things is morning activities. The air is smooth and brisk.  I get to watch the sun rise as my instructor and I fly out to the practice area. It is during these times that I know I am right where I want to be. The Florida sun is often glowing in long orange rays which peak between slowly lumbering Cumulus clouds off the coast. You haven’t seen a sunrise until you have watched it aloft.

 

What I am most excited for is when I complete my Flight Instructor certificate and can teach students how to fly. A flight instructor is a teacher,and I cannot wait to teach! But until then, I am satisfied with trying to impart some of the wisdom I have gained through this Blog.  I hope you will take some of these words seriously but more importantly I hope you enjoyed it. Thankyou for reading, you rock!

Feel free to contact me with any questions about pretty much anything: wilkinsz@my.erau.edu

What am I reading right now?        ‘The Proficient Pilot’ by Barry Schiff

 

The Exciting Life of a Physics Student

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Hello hello!

Time is sure flying, I can’t believe it’s been another two weeks. But I suppose I’ll pick up right where I left off in writing my life’s story. So here it goes…

A plot, similar to the one in my last entry, showing altitude above sea level and the corresponding vertical wind speed. This one is for Olympus Mons on Mars! Notice that the wind speed is about 10X higher, which makes sense because the mountain is a lot bigger.

Let me start off by pointing out the terrible error in my last post – my Mars map was upside down! I noticed it while working on my model in MATLAB. Major oops on that one. But I will say that it is now fixed, and the model is working beautifully. I was able to plot the vertical wind speed across Olympus Mons (which, as you recall from my earlier entries, is the largest volcano in the solar system at a height of about 26 km), and our next step is to implement these calculations in the atmospheric dynamics model to simulate some waves! If that sentence didn’t make sense to you, go back and read some of my past entries where I explain the basics of my research.

My CORRECT Martian topographic map generated in MATLAB. This time I used the copper color bar option, because the blue was a bit misleading. Lighter is higher elevation, and darker is lower elevation.

Speaking of physics and research and all that jazz, I’m getting pretty excited for the new College of Arts and Sciences building! They’ve named our new lab – it will be called ECLAIR:  Experimental and Computational Laboratory for Atmospheric and Ionospheric Research. Which is apparently French for “flash of lightning”, in addition to being a delicious French pastry. So for atmospheric scientists who are also partial to pastries, it seemed like a good fit. I will be presenting a poster about the new lab to the board of trustees on November 1st, which means I get to be one of the first people to stand inside the new building! Plus I get to wear a suit, and I always feel snazzy in a suit.

The new building seems like a good segway to my next topic – registering for next semester classes. Ah! It seems like this semester just started, and we’re already getting ready to register. My schedule for the spring seems pretty chill time-wise (only a couple classes on MWF, and a decent break on TTh) – I should note that, once you get to upper-level EP classes you start to lose control of making your own schedule. Every class I’m taking only has one section, and I lucked out in not having to take any 8:15s! Nonetheless, I’ll be taking five 300-level EP classes (Classical Mechanics, Optics, Microcomputers, Space Systems Engineering, and Junior Design); I saw my advisor today, and I quote… Me: “I just want to make sure next semester won’t kill me.” Him: “Oh it will.” Well then. I suppose it evens out for the fact that the classes will be really cool.

I also have to start thinking about a thesis topic, and man that feels so far off. I will probably continue to pursue my Martian atmospheric research, unless something else nifty catches my attention.

You never really get too old for Pokemon.

Now for those of you readers who are geeks like me, you’re probably wondering if I’m going to mention last weekend’s big release – Pokemon X and Y! Yes, I am, because that’s all I did this weekend. I bought a shiny new (used, but it’s new to me) 3DS – which is amazing technology might I add; I was skeptical – and picked up my copy of Y. I definitely have to give this game five stars, it’s completely revolutionized the franchise. And if you’re wondering, my entire team is named after moons, constellations, and space missions (Apollo, Aries, Triton, Phobos, Deimos, and Orion) because that’s just how I roll. I also found a shiny in the wild. If you don’t know what that means, just keep scrolling.

This weekend is fall break! Which is much needed. I’m planning to sleep, play Pokemon, sleep some more, watch Breaking Bad, and maybe plan a trip down to Kennedy Space Center if the government decides to run again. I should note that, while KSC is privately owned and operated and therefore still open during the shutdown, none of its tours run since it’s a government facility that’s being toured, and what’s the fun if you can’t see the cool space buildings?

This was posted on the Embry-Riddle Memes page the day of the career fair, with 298 “likes” and 33 “shares”. It made me lol.

Speaking of the government shut down, the career fair was last Wednesday (yes, that transition was completely relevant, just wait.) NASA wasn’t there obviously, which made me very very sad. I even stood next to their empty booth for a while hoping they’d magically appear and give me a job. They didn’t. BUT I did have a really good chat with a woman from Northrop-Grumman who seemed to really want to hire me. She had the same first name, so total ice-breaker, and asked me for two copies of my resume – one for the pile and one to take with her. So I’m expecting a phone call any day now, she practically promised -fingers crossed-. I also talked to some other small space companies that seemed really cool, and they seemed promising as well. Boeing seemed unimpressed, but they can keep their airplanes, I’m not interested.

And I almost forgot to mention Gravity! The movie, not the force. Go see it. Right now. It was so awesome. We went to the very first showing at 10 pm on Thursday night and saw it in 3D. Wow. That’s all I have to say about that. Granted the physics is a bit off in some places, but the amount of things they did right and the fact that the movie is simply incredible makes breaking physics worth it – and that’s coming from a physicist. (Plus, Sandra Bullock as an astronaut? You don’t want to miss that.)

Let’s see what else is going on… I suffered through an assignment for EP 501 that I think took 20-25 hours of work. It was four problems, and it took that long. What. I decided I don’t like grad school. Also, I had to go get a shot the other day, which, if you know me, you know is a big deal. I’m planning a trip to India this summer, so it’s probably worth it, but still – wah! Also also, the Indian restaurant here in Daytona that I go to about once a week got a new chef, and he makes my usual different and I’m sad. It’s not bad, it’s just not my usual anymore, y’know? (Have you ever noticed that the last paragraph of my blog entries are just the most random things I can think to mention?)

Will Northrop-Grumman ever call? What will happen with my Martian vertical forcing model? How much will I sleep during fall break? Get these exciting answers and more next time!

-Lynsey