When Aaliyah McCrary stepped to the microphone, she was being watched by a room full of her peers at Jennings High School, a panel of professional aviators and engineers, student groups from a few other states linked by videoconferencing, and anyone tuned to HEC-TV.
HEC-TV, short for Higher Education Channel, was broadcasting a live segment called “The Science Behind Aviation” at the Gore Community Education Center in the Jennings School District on Thursday, April 20. But McCrary was more interested in practical employment options than the intricacies of science.
She directed her question to U.S. Air Force Major Mallory Nordquist, who is based at Scott Air Force Base and flies C-5 transport planes. Nordquist was the only female on an all-white panel of guests recruited by the show’s producers. McCrary, like every student in attendance, is black. She asked Nordquist what employment options female aviators have in the Air Force, and Nordquist listed a number of flight and support positions.
McCrary, though only a freshman at Jennings High School, has already started to make plans for life after high school: She will follow a favorite aunt into the U.S. Army. But watching a woman talk about flying planes huge enough to carry tanks – Nordquist said when she approaches the cockpit of a C-5, she thinks, “I’m about to fly this building” – made McCrary rethink her plans.
“It was pretty informative and educational,” McCrary said after the taping wrapped. “It made me think about going into the Air Force instead of the Army.”
According to Superintendent Art McCoy, the district invited two groups of students to participate in “The Science Behind Aviation” – students from the district’s robotics team and students from its Jennings Educational Training Alternative School.
Herman Harris, the district’s alternative school administrator, said he wanted some of his students to attend the taping to expose them to “something different.” It’s one of many strategies he employs for drop-out prevention.
“Many of our students are struggling to find themselves and figure out what to do when they leave high school,” Harris said. “Exposure to information and opportunities is everything.”
The students were exposed to a man who followed his dreams and learned to fly stunts. Patrick McAlee described going to air shows in St. Louis as a small boy and deciding – at age 8 – that he wanted to be, of all things, a stunt pilot when he grew up. He started making and saving money at the tender age of 13 and used that money to buy his first plane in 2008.
“It takes a lot of practice and physical endurance, but it’s a spiritual thing too,” McAlee said of flying stunts. “You become one with your airplane.”
McAlee also offered the youths a valuable lesson: Just because you follow your dream and it comes true doesn’t mean it will pay the bills. He continues to fly daring stunts for spiritual thrills, but to earn a living he flies steady and straight, with as few thrills as possible, for a commercial airline.
“Commercial aviation brings home the paycheck,” McAlee said. “You do what you need to do so you can do what you want to do.”
The students from the robotics team had plenty of inside information to soak up from the experts.
Robert Dowgwillo, an expert in aerodynamics who works with Boeing Research and Technology, said designing an airplane – even the F-15, a deadly supersonic plane designed to win fire fights and master the sky – comes down to “a packaging problem.” The plane’s mission dictates what needs to go on the plane, and it’s an engineer’s problem to package it all so that the plane will fly and execute its mission.
Steve Dobronski, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who flew the F-15 in combat missions, described how the pilot’s physical training and flight suit are both designed to keep blood in the pilot’s head while the centrifugal force of supersonic flight pulls the blood down to his or her feet. If not corrected, this would cause the pilot to pass out in mid-air.
“Your suit puffs up, which pushes the blood back up,” Dobronski said. “You also tighten your legs and abs to keep the blood in your head. That’s one reason we do so much strength training.”
From Ken Blackburn, who spoke via video from Florida, where he conducts aeronautical research for the Air Force, the students learned something adults don’t usually teach at school: how to make a paper airplane. Blackburn has held the world record for keeping a paper airplane aloft for the longest time (27.6 seconds is his best; the current record holder, Takuo Toda of Hiroshima, Japan, has him beat by 1.6 seconds).
All of the students made paper airplanes, following Blackburn’s directions, and then competed in a throw. HEC-TV Live host Tim Gore measured the students’ throws by distance, not time aloft, and declared a winner in Antoine Ross, a senior at Jennings High School who participates in the school’s robotics team.
Ross has plans for after high school – he will attend Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois to study information systems and play football – but he still took home some immediate practical applications. His robotics team is designing a glider for the Boeing Engineering Challenge, and the student learned some design ideas from the professionals.
“It was a learning experience,” Ross said. “It will help us make our plane for the Boeing contest.”
HEC-TV programs are archived at http://www.hectv.org.
