Model Airplanes

MOSCOW • The Russian aviation authorities have grounded the country’s fleet of its newest model of civilian airliner, the Sukhoi Superjet 100. The move came after metal fatigue, a problem usually associated with older airplanes, was discovered in the tail section of a new Sukhoi plane, according to Rosaviatsia, the regulator.

The grounding last Friday is the latest setback for the Russian aircraft. The plane model is important as a test of whether Russia’s military aerospace prowess can translate into a successful civilian product. The manufacturer, Sukhoi, is best known as the maker of military jets flying over Syria.

Most other Russia-made civilian planes, once a workhorse fleet of wide- and narrow-body craft, are flown only by regional airlines, and the ageing planes are plagued by safety problems.

Rosaviatsia ordered the Sukhoi planes grounded pending inspections after a regional carrier, IrAero, reported finding metal fatigue in a component in the tail wings of one plane, according to Regnum, a non-governmental Russian news agency.

The agency grounded the fleet to determine whether similar problems were appearing in other planes, most of which have been flying for only a few years.

After the latest announcement, Russian national airline Aeroflot, a major Sukhoi customer, last Saturday cancelled 21 flights scheduled on domestic routes during the holiday season.

Sukhoi said in a statement that it was conducting inspections of the entire fleet “to support airworthiness of the civilian Sukhoi planes”. The defect “of one element of the tail portion” could not cause a crash, but “all the same airlines

Article source: http://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/russia-grounds-fleet-of-newest-aircraft-over-safety-issues

As the six children sat around the table, busy with scissors and tape, one started humming a familiar tune.

The “Star Wars” theme seemed to be a fitting soundtrack for the morning’s activity, which was an exploration of science and technology.

The children were taking part in an aviation-education camp inside a hangar at Vancouver’s historic airport, Pearson Field. During winter break, the Pearson Field Education Center is offering the half-day sessions for kids in first grade through fourth grade.

This was not necessarily an introductory session. Several of the children have flown in airplanes, and 9-year-old Annika Morrow sees more of it in her future.

“I want to be a pilot when I grow up,” said Morrow, a fourth-grader at Pleasant Valley Primary School. “My dad says flying is in my blood. My great-grandfather was a pilot.”

Everett Pryor, 9, already knew the four principles of flight: lift, thrust, weight and drag.

But the camp gives children a hands-on opportunity to play with those principles.

“We want to make science fun,” said Garrett Schmidt, director of Pearson Field Education Center. “We want to give them the concepts of science, not get into the academics behind it. If we can coordinate scientific activities with play, that’s when learning happens.”

During that scissors-and-tape activity, the children built whirligigs. They cut the open end of their paper cones, creating petal-like wings that demonstrated the concept of lift when the whirligigs were released over a vertical wind table.

That was the goal, anyway. A camper accurately summed up an unsuccessful launch this

Article source: http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/dec/25/aviation-education-camp-vancouver-pearson-field-kids/

“It takes a lot of work to create something like this and a lot of time,” said Skogland. “Actually 15 years.”

Mary Maxim is the company where Skogland found some do-it-yourself yarn crafts all those years ago.  The kits Skogland bought come with a plastic canvas and yarn to create the building.

“There’s a lot of cutting and a lot of patience,” said Skogland, who has dedicated her time to these works of art since retiring in 1992 from Warren Local Schools.

The village may have been created by the hands of Skogland but each piece has been a gift to Fleming resident Kathy Morrow, 58, since the two have been friends. Both are retired Warren teachers and Skogland served as a mentor to Morrow at the beginning of her career. Skogland spent 31 years in the district teaching at Barlow-Vincent Elementary School and Warren Elementary School. The two worked very closely together, they said.

“I get two buildings twice a year,” said Morrow. “She has made me one for my birthday in February and Christmas. When she retired she wanted something to do so I showed her how to do these.”

Skogland said she hasn’t made a new building since 2008 due to tearing tendons in her shoulder as she was an active bowler, although she plans to try again.

“I have two houses to make if I want … I just don’t know if my shoulder will let me do it,” she said. “We went up to

Article source: http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/local-news/2016/12/do-it-yourself-project-produces-a-christmas-village/