2015 Archives

December 2015

On December 14th, the Section Council and their families lent a hand to Santa. For the second year in a row, the group came to MindGear Labs (now in Lowe Mill) to assemble, paint, and wrap toys for disadvantaged children as part of Santa’s Lab.

November 2015

To reach out to the Section's Student Branches, the Chair completed a three-school swing visiting with students and faculty at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), Tuskegee University, and Auburn University in early November. Joining him for the latter two visits was the Section’s Liaison to Student Branches Neal Allgood

November 2015

In recognition of Veterans’ Day, the Greater Huntsville Section hosted a presentation titled, “An Engineer at War” by Ken Philippart, Lt Col, USAF (retired), and Past Section Chair, on his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.

November 2015

Eric Black, winner of the Section’s inaugural First Flight Commemoration Contest last December, finally took to the skies for his contest-prize of an hour of dual flight instruction. The flight instruction was donated by Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 190

October 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section welcomes its newest student branch, the University of South Alabama (USA), to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Professor Carlos Montalvo, Faculty Advisor for the USA branch, notified section leadership on October 22 that he received the official charter and welcome package from AIAA. The USA Student Branch has approximately 20 student members.

September 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section capped the 2014 – 2015 section year by winning eight national-level section awards given by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Greater Huntsville took home an award in every category, the first time the section has dominated these awards in many years.

June 2015

On Saturday, June 20th the AIAA Greater Huntsville Section participated in the second annual NASA on the Square, an event designed to showcase the work done at Marshall Space Flight Center outside the gates of Redstone Arsenal to be more accessible to the general public. In addition to MSFC exhibits, industry partners and outside groups, like AIAA, set up booths to engage the children who attended in activities that would excite them about the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields.

May 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section's 63rd annual awards dinner: Section awards, scholarship presentation,etc.

April 2015

Section Chair Ken Philippart visited Mobile on April 22nd and 23rd to meet with the Greater Huntsville Section’s Mobile area members, including the University of South Alabama’s fledgling student branch and the acting leadership of Greater Huntsville Section’s Mobile Chapter, which was established last fall.

March 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section kicked off a hands-on project to design, build and successfully fire a safe, reusable and portable rocket engine demonstrator for use in aerospace education and community outreach activities. This demonstrator is colloquially known as a “suitcase rocket” since it is packaged in a carrying case.

March 2015

Early on March 21, the Greater Huntsville Section headed south for the spring to Birmingham to visit the Southern Museum of Flight and to meet and network with Birmingham area members.

March 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section of the AIAA joined other Huntsville area technical societies to celebrate Engineers Week (E Week) at the annual DiscoverE Awards Banquet.

March 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section sponsored its second tour this section year of the United Launch Alliance plant in Decatur during Engineers Week. Section member Michael Dunning arranged the tour of the facility, one of only two ULA locations worldwide for manufacturing, assembly and integration operations.

February 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section kicked-off its celebration of 2015 Engineers Week (E Week) with a social on February 23 at Bar Louie at Bridgestreet in Huntsville.

February 2015

The Section provided an orientation flight for the winner of the inaugural First Flight Commemoration Contest last December.

January 2015

The Greater Huntsville Section commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the founding of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) over the last week in January with several activities