Sowing the seeds of knowledge early | HeraldNet.com

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Writer

MUKILTEO — Fact and fantasy made for an inspiring mix at the Future of Flight this week.

As adults milled about Wednesday in “Star Wars” garb that looked like it came straight from the movies, high school students from this galaxy — Mountlake Terrace, to be exact — showcased real-life rockets and robots, proof they’re on a path to take over as the next generation of engineers and scientists.

They came for the Future of Flight’s sixth annual Family STEAM Night — an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics. Many schools use the acronym STEM, which is the same thing minus the arts.

“We’re showing them that it’s not just about math and all of the hard stuff — engineering is fun, math is fun,” said Cole Goodnight, 17, the leadership president for Mountlake Terrace’s STEM Program. “It plants the seed. It gets them interested at a young age.”

Cole was talking about encouraging his fellow Terrace students, but his comments could have applied to Wednesday’s event as well.

The nonprofit Institute of Flight organized it. All 1,400 free tickets were snapped up by 5:30 p.m., when activities got started at the Future of Flight facility on the west side of Paine Field. More than 30 groups and institutions participated.

Ben Alfrejd as Darth Obelis talks with Montgomery Johnson on Wednesday afternoon during the 2018 Family STEAM Night at The Future of Flight Aviation Center in Mukilteo. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)

Centers of higher learning came to

Article source: http://www.heraldnet.com/news/family-steam-night-aims-to-get-young-people-excited-about-engineering-and-related-fields/

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Boeing’s MAX 7 heads into blue skies above Renton on first flight

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Writer

The third and smallest model of Boeing’s new 737 MAX jet family took off into a clear blue sky Friday on its first flight from Renton.

In a successful trip of just over three hours, Boeing test pilots Jim Webb and Keith Otsuka put the airplane through checks of its flight controls, systems and handling qualities. The airplane landed safely at Boeing Field at 1:22 p.m.

Keith Leverkuhn, head of the 737 MAX program said “everything we saw during today’s flight shows that the MAX 7 is performing exactly as designed.”

Though the MAX family of jets has been a huge sales success, winning more than 4,300 orders, sales of this MAX 7 model have lagged. A shrunken version of the MAX 8, it’s less fuel efficient on a per-seat basis.

Despite a redesign in 2016 that stretched the fuselage to add two extra rows of seats, the MAX 7 has just five airline customers and one aircraft lessor.

Southwest Airlines and WestJet of Canada placed the bulk of the orders, around 55, with smaller orders from Jetlines of Canada, Ruili of China, one unidentified airline and Air Lease Corp.

In January, Southwest pushed out its orders for 23 MAX 7s until 2023 and 2024, simultaneously

Article source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/max-7-heads-into-blue-skies-on-first-flight/

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Boeing’s 737 hits historic milestone: 10,000 planes | The Seattle Times

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Writer

Boeing celebrated Tuesday production of its 10,000th single-aisle 737, putting what is already the best-selling jet of all time on track to become the best-selling large transport airplane in history.

Yet when the plane first flew more than 50 years ago, no one could have guessed its destiny.

The pilot in command on that first flight, now 93, recalled hopping around the globe in 737s in the years after the plane’s 1967 debut to goose flagging sales.

“At the time of its birth, we were struggling to attract airlines at all,” said pilot Brien Wygle in a phone interview. “I don’t think anybody could have foreseen the extreme success of the airplane in the long run.”

Bob Bogash, 73, who as an engineer helped build the first airplane, flew in a later globe-spanning sales flight aboard the 1,000th 737.

He recalled a grueling journey in 1984 from Seattle across North America, then over the North Atlantic via Iceland to various European capitals, crossing the Sahara to visit nine countries in Africa as far south as Zimbabwe, then flying over the South Atlantic to French Guiana and Venezuela, before returning home to Seattle via Puerto Rico and Memphis — 19 countries in 27 days, routinely waking at 5 a.m. and getting to bed around midnight.

“You never stayed in one place. You had nowhere to do your laundry. In half these places,

Article source: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-737-hits-historic-milestone-10000-planes-delivered/

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Why There Aren’t More Female Pilots

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Writer

Beverley Bass has always wanted to fly. When she was a toddler in a stroller, she’d wave her hands excitedly as an airplane passed overhead. In elementary school, a neighbor’s statue of Icarus inspired her to climb on her mother’s washing machine and jump off in an attempt at flight. Later, when National Airlines began its nightly service from Tampa to Fort Myers, Florida, Bass would beg her aunt to take her to Page Field’s chain link fence to watch the aircraft land, where she’d stand, thinking, “Those guys have the coolest job in the world.”

Bass, by all accounts, has fulfilled that dream. But it was not easy. In 1971, when there were still no commercial female airline pilots, she began flying lessons at age 19. Then came flight school, and building hours by transporting bodies to and from Fort Worth for a mortician; Bass was paid $5 an hour and flew a two-seat, D model Bonanza. Next? A job flying freight—canceled checks, Fotomat film, airplane parts—from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. five days a week. In the fall of 1976, Bass became the third female pilot hired by American Airlines (Bonnie Tiburzi, hired in 1973, was the first); she became a copilot in June of 1979 and in October 1986, was

Article source: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-there-arent-more-female-pilots

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Wiring likely cause of crash

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Writer

A new National Traffic Safety Board report points to unsafe electrical wiring near hydraulic lines as the cause of a Cal-Ore Life Flight crash that killed four people after it left Crescent City July 29, 2016.

While it doesn’t specifically state the cause of the crash, the NTSB Aviation Accident Factual report did prompt the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a warning to operators of the same model aircraft that electrical wires need to be regularly inspected and addressed.

The plane was piloted by Larry Mills, 54, and carried flight nurse Deborah Kroon, 49, flight paramedic Michelle Tarwater, 30, and patient April Rodriguez, 35. All died in the crash in a remote section of Humboldt County.

The NTSB report, released March 7, notes that on July 29, 2016, the Piper PA-31T Cheyenne II airplane crashed after the pilot reported the cockpit was filling with smoke.

“At (11:58 p.m.) the pilot contacted the Seattle Air Route Traffic Control Center controller working the flight and stated that he was going to turn back to Crescent City and that he was smelling smoke in the cockpit,” the report states. “Radar data indicated that the airplane’s altitude about that time was 14,900 ft, and the airplane was on a southeast heading.”

Article source: http://www.currypilot.com/news/6086256-151/wiring-likely-cause-of-crash

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Aviation events added to spring break

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Writer

Will Rogers was undoubtedly aviation’s most enthusiastic booster at the time of his death in 1935. More than eight decades later, aviation will play a role in Spring Break at Will Rogers Memorial Museums next Monday through Friday helping participants learn more about Will.

Tulsa Air and Space Museum representatives will be at the Claremore Museum on Wednesday and American Turf Flyers will have scale models, jets and 3D aerobatic airplanes at the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch on Thursday.

ATF, organized in 1981 and headquartered in the Broken Arrow area is a charter club of Academy of Model Aeronautics.

Max Terhune, club spokesperson, said most of the planes would be electric and have wingspans from 46 inches to 12 inches. Club participants are expected to have two planes each and will be on display and demonstrate from the grass strip at the ranch.

Spring Break is free to 17 and under from 1 to 3 p.m. Activities will be Monday, Wednesday and Friday in Claremore and Tuesday and Thursday at the Birthplace Ranch.

For additional information about Spring Break or to enter the Mid-Afternoon Frolic Talent show on Friday, visit willrogers.com.

Article source: http://www.claremoreprogress.com/news/aviation-events-added-to-spring-break/article_397583d2-2898-11e8-824a-5f84a3d904da.html

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Toys R Us is history, but here are five other places to shop for kids in Fresno

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Writer

Toys R Us as we know it is history.

The West Shaw Avenue Toys R Us store is midway through a going-out-of-business sale, part of a wave of 182 stores the retailer began closing earlier this year.

Thursday the company officially began the process that will close all its 800 stores, though there is an effort underway to sell 200 of them. The company is bankrupt, saddled with more than $5 billion in debt. It is also closing all 100 of its stores in the United Kingdom.

Even if some American stores are sold, Toys R Us will never be the same.

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The Toys R Us stores in Clovis and Visalia will either close or be sold, along with the Babies R Us store in Fresno that the company also owns.

The Toys R Us at 3520 W. Shaw Ave. is neck deep in its going-out-of-business sale, with items marked down between 30 percent and 50 percent.

It has all the chaos that dying stores usually do. The baby furniture department is picked clean, but other shelves are fully stocked. Beneath the price checker is a pile of toys that customers have scanned and rejected. Papers and empty Duracell boxes litter the floor. At the checkout counter, a handful of personalized polar bear Christmas ornaments bearing names like Jack and Gavin have fallen to the floor, with neither customers nor staffers

Article source: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/food-drink/bethany-clough/article205099579.html

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