Scott Crossfield Foundation Updates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, August 26, 2011

Lt. Col. Bill Powley, USAF (ret) Presented Excellence Award

Lt. Colonel Bill Powley, USAF (ret) was presented the prestigious Career Contributions to Aviation Excellence Award by the Tennessee Aeronautics Commission at the 26th annual Tennessee Airports Conference on August 18, 2011, at the Airport Marriott in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference is hosted by the Tennessee Aeronautics Division.

This award is given to individuals who have set an example for others through leadership, dedication, persistence and an overall commitment to excellence. Powley built an aviation program in Unicoi County where no airport exists. He founded the FLIGHT Foundation which stands for Flight Lessons Instructional Grants Helping Teens. This Foundation provides funding for the aerospace education program at Unicoi County High School. Powley has helped over 4,700 students take orientation flights and soled 96 cadets from 1996 to date.
Powley had an illustrious career in the Air Force as a fighter pilot and is twice a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 2010 he received the covetous 24th annual A. Scott Crossfield Aerospace Education Teacher of the Year Award during the National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) President’s Dinner in Dayton, Ohio.

The Aerospace Industries Association’s Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2012. Thanks to the participation of more than 50,000 and several dozen companies, an event that started out as a celebration of the centennial of flight has in one decade blossomed into the world’s largest rocket contest and one of the biggest Science Technology Engineering and Math student competitions.

As President Obama noted recently, the United States cannot remain competitive unless more students excel in STEM. At AIA, we are working hard to ensure that America remains at the forefront of technological innovation by inspiring and encouraging students to pursue STEM studies and careers.

As we all know, a highly skilled and robust aerospace workforce is essential to our national security and economic prosperity. Our industry faces significant challenges, including impending retirements and a shortage of trained engineers and other technical graduates – - and the forecast is increasingly bleak over the next decade.

AIA is helping to address the nation’s STEM education and workforce issues by bringing students and industry together through TARC. The White House recently highlighted our efforts in its Office of Science and Technology Policy blog about TARC: Building a Model (Rocket) Workforce.

We urge you to consider sponsoring the Team America Rocketry Challenge for its 10th anniversary season, which we intend to make our largest and best competition yet. Sponsoring TARC is an excellent way for your company to gain exposure, network with other AIA member companies, and educate students, their parents, guidance counselors and teachers about careers in aerospace. Among the benefits that sponsors receive:

Opportunities to Inform Your Community About Aerospace

Mentor a TARC team at your local middle or high school
Provide technical advice and assistance to teachers and
coaches.

Provide presentations, plant tours, and other information and
events to spread information about our industry and its career
opportunities to students, parents and educators.

Prominent Placement of Your Company’s Logo at the National
Finals

On the massive 3×12′ banners surrounding the launch site
On the launch range, launch pads, and on the backdrop at the
awards ceremony
On the TARC website
On press releases and all promotion materials

All Access Passes to the National Finals

Entrance to the TARC contest
VIP passes to the lunch, ice cream social, and BBQ dinner

Tickets to the VIP Reception at the National Finals

Access to the private VIP reception in the afternoon with US
government officials from the White House, NASA, DOD, and
FAA, and other special guests including former astronauts and
leaders of the aerospace industry

Exhibition Area Booth at the National Finals

Space in the exhibit area at no additional cost
Ability to highlight company products and career opportunities

Should you have any questions or if you would like to become a sponsor please contact Anne Ward, Manager, Team America Rocketry Challenge at (703)-358-1033 or anne.ward@aia-aerospace.org.

http://www.facebook.com/l/75cd1UYqhsdOp0xsKw5saNscyZQ/www.landspeed.com/files/FOR%2520IMMEDIATE%2520RELEAS1.pdf

http://whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/31/building-model-rocket-workforce

Chehalis-Centralia Airport Honors Local Aviation Pioneer: Scott Crossfield: Officials Dedicate Terminal, Observation Park After Man Who Was the First to Fly at Mach 2

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 4:00 PM

(Source: The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.)By Christopher Brewer, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.

Aug. 24–To say Ed and Norine Jones remember renowned test pilot Scott Crossfield quite well from their high school days in Boistfort is, well, a bit of an understatement.

“Scott was kinda a hellion, always flying his remote-controlled planes everywhere,” Ed Jones reminisced. “He was always acting up in there, trying to find some way to skip school to go fly.”

More than 60 years later, the octogenarians still live in Curtis near Crossfield’s old farm, so it was only appropriate they were in attendance for Monday evening’s dedication of the Chehalis-Centralia Airport terminal in their friend’s name.

The pair joined more than 50 community leaders and members in renaming the terminal Scott Crossfield Terminal, and officially opening an interpretive park detailing the airport’s early history as Donahoe Field.

“We have such a great history of aviation in Lewis County,” said attorney and airport board member Robert Schroeter during the ceremony. “Not only was Scott Crossfield raised here, but this was the very first place he learned how to fly.”

The rest, as they say, is history: after a stint working at the University of Washington wind tunnels in the 1940s, Crossfield became a test pilot in the Navy and would successfully become the first person to fly at Mach 2, taking a Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket to twice the speed of sound.

Crossfield had reached 1,291 miles per hour, a figure unheard of 1953 when it happened.

“Everyone heard the ‘boom’ when he hit the sound barrier, I’m sure,” Norine Jones said. “Knowing Scott, it wasn’t surprising at all that he was the first man to fly so fast so quickly.”

As another tribute to Crossfield, Oakville pilot Mike Kimbrel flew his very own Douglas DC-3A onto the field at Chehalis-Centralia Airport.

The aircraft, which retains the logo and tail number for Western Air Lines — the first commercial service into Chehalis — was built in 1941 and was in service for Western until 1958, according to Kimbrel.

“I really don’t get to take it out all too often, but today was the perfect occasion,” said Kimbrel, a commercial pilot who retired after 37 years. “We’re celebrating local aviation history so I wanted to bring my own piece of history here to honor Scott Crossfield.”

Before the ribbon cutting, Schroeter made a humorous reference to last week’s infamous sonic boom incident, saying he had personally called up the Oregon Air National Guard to provide the Twin Cities with two loud booms as a tribute to Crossfield.

“I figured he flew at twice the speed of sound, so that’s why you heard two booms last week,” Schroeter said, to laughter from the crowd.

While Crossfield will be remembered as a world-renowned test pilot who tested the limits of speed and safety in experimental aircraft, he’s still known by his childhood friends in Boistfort as one who told them he’d risk it all to hold the speed record.

“I remember talking to him once about flying those machines and he said ‘It’s not an adventure, it’s a calculated risk,’” Norine Jones said. “It’s still amazing to think our classmate was the one to hold such a special place in history.”

Christopher Brewer: (360) 807-8235

If You Go …

The new interpretive park at Chehalis-Centralia Airport offers the public a place to watch planes take off and land, and also displays the history of the airport as Donahoe Field from its beginning in 1927.

The airport’s history is detailed from the glorious to the quirky moments, including the field being a stop on the first airmail route in 1930, and also being the starting point for Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 flight in which he claimed he saw nine flying discs between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams.

The public is invited to the interpretive park, which is located at 900 Northwest Airport Road in Chehalis. For those coming from Louisiana Avenue, the park is roughly a quarter-mile before the entrance of the terminal.

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Copyright (c) 2010, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.

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Teachers in Space Announces Summer Workshops for High-School Teachers

Teachers Can Learn about Space Medicine, Human Factors, Astronautics,and Suborbital Science

Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX (Feb. 6, 2011) – In the summer of 2011, Teachers in Space will offer five one-week professional-development workshops for high-school science, technology, engineering, and math teachers. Teachers in Space project manager Edward
Wright announced the workshops during the final session of the Space Exploration Educators Conference, which took place here today.

“Next summer, teachers will have opportunities to experience unpowered aircraft flight with a former NASA Shuttle commander, to fly a flight simulator for the next generation of reusable spacecraft, to study the
effects of high-altitude flight in a university altitude chamber, and to build experiments that will fly on a suborbital vehicle,” Wright said.

At the Suborbital Astronautics Workshop, teachers will learn about aeronautics and spaceflight while experiencing some of the training that future space pilots will receive. Expert instructors will include former Shuttle commander and XCOR Aerospace chief test pilot Col. Rick Searfoss
(USAF-ret.). Participating teachers will fly in a glider and learn to pilot a flight simulator for a suborbital spacecraft now under development. At the end of the workshop, teachers will receive a copy of the simulator software to take back to the classroom.

The Suborbital Astronautics Workshop will be held for the first time at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, TX on June 20-24.

Repeat sessions will be held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL on July 18-22 and at NASA Dryden’s AERO Institute in Palmdale, CA on July 25-29.

At the Space Medicine and Human Factors Workshop, teachers will learn about high-altitude physiology and respiration, decompression and vacuum exposure, space weather and radiation, and the effects of weightlessness, gee forces, noise, and vibration. The workshop will be
held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL on July 11-15.

At the Suborbital Flight Experiment Workshop, teachers will gain hands-on experience with space hardware as they build experiments to fly aboard an unmanned suborbital experiment as part of the Excelsior STEM
mission. The workshop will be held at the NASA Dryden AERO Institute in Palmdale, CA on August 1-5.

The workshops are being developed by Teachers in Space, a nonprofit project of the Space Frontier Foundation, under a cooperative agreement with NASA.

The workshops will be offered at no charge to teachers. Low-cost subsidized housing will be available for workshop participants. A limited number of travel stipends will be available to defray the cost of meals and transportation.

Additional information and workshop applications can be found at: www.teachersinspace.org/workshops.htm

From AVweb February 10, 2011

Nominees Announced For Collier Trophy

The National Aeronautic Association has announced its 2010 nominees for the Robert J. Collier Trophy, which will be awarded for the 100th time at a luncheon in Arlington, Va., next month. The award aims to honor “the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America” during the year. This year’s nominees are: Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and the X2 Technology Demonstrator team, the Boeing Company C-17A Globemaster III team, the X-51A WaveRider team, the automatic ground collision avoidance system fighter risk reduction program team, MC-12W Project Liberty team, the Orion launch-abort system development team, and a nominee listed as “General Aviation: Saving Thousands of Lives in Haiti.”

Past winners include the crews of Apollo 11 and Apollo 8, the Mercury 7, Scott Crossfield, Burt Rutan and Howard Hughes. Projects and programs which have been the recipient of the Collier include the B-52, the Polaris Missile, the Surveyor Moon Landing Program, the Boeing 747, the Cessna Citation, the Gulfstream V, the Eclipse E500 and the F-22. The selection committee comprises 30 leaders in the fields of aviation and aerospace and is led by NAA Chairman Walter J. Boyne. The committee will meet on March 14, and the winner will be announced on March 15, at the NAA Spring Awards Luncheon. The formal presentation of the Collier Trophy will take place on May 5 at the 100th Anniversary Collier Dinner in Arlington.

From AVweb:

Arnold Palmer Hangs Up His Wings

At age 81, Arnold Palmer, a pilot since 1956, has logged nearly 20,000 flight hours and Monday took his last flight as pilot in command, before voluntarily hanging up his wings. Palmer has owned 10 aircraft, from an Aero Commander 500 to the Cessna Citation X he piloted for his final flight. Speaking with Golf Digest, Palmer said he would continue flying, just not in the cockpit. “Flying has been one of the great things in my life,” Palmer said. “It’s taken me to the far corners of the world. I met thousands of people I otherwise wouldn’t have met. And I even got to play a little golf along the way.” In October, 2010, Palmer was chosen by the FAA in the company of six others, including Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, to receive a Wright Brothers Master Pilot Certificate. The certificate recognizes 50 or more consecutive years of safe flight operations and is not Palmer’s only distinct achievement in aviation.

Arnold Palmer set a speed record in 1976 when he flew a Lear 36 east from Denver around the world in 57 hours, 25 minutes and 42 seconds. The flight stopped in Boston, Paris, Tehran, Sri Lanka, Jakarta, Manila, Wake Island and Honolulu, and the time still stands. Palmer didn’t dally, but did take time to ride an elephant in Sri Lanka and accepted a gift from Manila’s then-president Ferdinand Marcos. Palmer learned to fly in his hometown of Latrobe, Pa. His last flight was from Palm Springs to Orlando.