Summer Networking/Social Event with VFS
On 16 July at the Texas Star Golf Course, AIAA North Texas teamed with the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) Southwest Section to host a summer networking/social event for students, interns, young professionals, and all. Students were allowed to attend for free. Introductions were done by Dr. Elizabeth Ward from Bell (VFS Southwest President/AIAA Member), along with an AIAA welcome by North Texas Chair James Sergeant. Over 120 attended from AIAA & VFS with about 70 professional members and 50 students/interns. Dr. Troy Schank, Bell, presented Full Scale Stop-fold Transition Demonstration on a High-Speed Test Track about their recent sled test of a new concept for a foldable rotor to allow even higher-speed flight to be attained. Dr. Schank also mentioned the recent award to Bell to build a flight vehicle in the next few years to further demonstrate the potentials for this technology. Networking occurred before and after the presentation with heavy hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.
Moon Day STEM event inspires the future of Aerospace
On 19 July, our annual, award-winning STEM event helped get kids get interested in aviation, have fun, and meet other students and professionals including engineers and test pilots as part of the Frontiers of Flight Museum Moon Day. Our volunteers helped kids make paper airplanes, fly them on the flight test range to measure time of flight and distance, then compute the resultant velocity. The F-35 simulator provided attendees and volunteers the opportunity to see how easy it is to fly and operate the 5th generation fighter. Also, volunteers got a chance to meet, take photos with, and get an autographed picture from the keynote speaker, retired NASA Astronaut Carl E. Walz. Special thanks to the UTA & UTD rocket teams /AIAA student chapters for once again providing great volunteer support. Also thanks to AIAA high school student support!
A few photos are below. Full resolution versions and more are loaded onto AIAA North Texas Engage website. The museum will have all their event photos uploaded to a Dropbox soon.
LM Test Pilot “Shark” instructed in the F-35 sim
UTD AIAA student chapter was a primary supporter with several volunteers
AIAA members helped kids build airplanes
UTA Aero Mavs provided many volunteers (flight test range)
Parents & kids flew the F-35 sim
UTA Assistant Professor/AIAA member Dr. Vijay Gopal (on right) helped kids design and build paper airplanes
UTA Aero Mavs new Rocketry Chief Marouane Aimouch worked with kids to analyze flight test results
Keynote Speaker NASA Astronaut (ret.) Dominic A “Tony” Antonelli
AIAA young professionals (YPs) helped kids analyze flight test results
R to L - Aero Mavs President Deeva Khanuja, Aero Mavs former Rocketry Chief Lucas Anderson, Astronaut Antonelli, Aero Mavs new Rocketry Chief Marouane Aimouch, AIAA NTX Chair James Sergeant
R to L - Leslie Nava (2024 AIAA $10K Kahn Scholarship winner), UTD AIAA members, Astronaut Antonelli, YP Natalie Antis, James
