This past September, CHI Aerospace attended a number of events and partnered with members of our community to help support our neighbors and share our love of aviation! Read all about the events below:
New Castle Family Fun Night
Sunday, September 8th
For our first event, CHI Aerospace got to attend the New Castle Family Fun Night. The event was held at the New Castle Commons in an effort to raise funds for the park and improve the playground to make it a safe place for everyone to enjoy. We brought our Redbird Jay Simulator and talked to individuals of all ages about aviation and flight training at CHI. The kids loved flying all the different planes on the Jay and talking to us about flying. We also donated an intro flight for the raffle which got a lot of people buzzing! Everyone at the event had a blast and we even given some free lobster rolls at the end!
UNH “U” Day Campus Picnic and Student Activities Fair
Tuesday, September 10th
A few days later, CHI attended “U Day” at the University of New Hampshire. U Day is a large event held on the main green of UNH where all of the campus organizations, clubs and UNH Departments showcase their services and recruit new members. We partnered with the UNH Aviation Club to support them for this event and talked to students around campus about careers and opportunities in aviation. We had students stop and talk to us and try out our Redbird Jay Simulator. CFI John Tiplady and his student even did a fly over in one of our RV-12s for the event. By the end of the event, the UNH aviation club had over 80 sign ups! It was a successful and fun event and the UNH Aviation Club is very excited to work with us in the future.
UNH Aviation Club: CHI Aerospace Presentation
Thursday, September 19th
We partnered again with the UNH Aviation Club to present a slideshow on careers and opportunities in aviation. Joe, one of of dispatchers, talked about careers in aviation, the world of general aviation and opportunities in the seacoast area that students can take advantage of and enjoy. Tina introduced CHI Aerospace and talked about our mission as a flight school. She also talked about the business side of running a flight school and shared her story on how she first got into flying. From there, Scott, one of our recently added CFI’s, talked about his journey to becoming an instructor and what it takes to become a pilot. The students were very engaged and asked a lot of questions about where to begin and our experiences as pilots and student pilots. The presentation went very well and we received a lot of positive feedback from the president and co-president of the UNH Aviation Club. We also had a few students inquire about intro flights after the presentation! We hope to organize a trip to CHI with the aviation club this spring.
Manchester Aviation Museum Fundraiser at SNHU
Tuesday, September 24th
CHI Aerospace was happy to support the Aviation Museum of NH and their efforts to fundraise for the Manchester School of Technology. Our RV-12, N266VA, was flown into Manchester (MHT) and after taking the wings off, was then put on a trailer and transported to SNHU. Stephanie and Joe attended the event to talk about the RV-12, and how it’s a great training aircraft and what makes it so unique. They also encouraged others to take steps to learn to fly and how CHI Aerospace is a
great first stepping stone.
The gala, held by the Aviation Museum of NH, was meant to raise money for the Manchester School of Technology students to help fund the build of an RV-12. Their plan is to build the RV-12 and then sell it to fund next year’s project. Guest speakers included the director of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, Theodore S. Kitchens, and the founder of Van’s Aircraft Inc, Richard VanGrunsven, via skype. It was exciting to talk to the board members and motivated students who are enthusiastic about this project, and attest to the success of the RV-12 both as a home built and trainer aircraft.
Sanborn High School Field Trip to CHI Aerospace
Monday, October 7th
On October 7th, CHI Aerospace hosted a field trip event for the aviation students from Sanborn High School. Sanborn was selected by the AOPA as one of approximately 120 schools around the country to begin implementation of a four year aviation curriculum developed by the AOPA. Sanborn’s was just awarded a state grant to purchase a flight simulator, and we help them find the right simulator for their program. We were able to give the students a tour of our facility and let them try out our simulators. The best score of the day for the X-Wind simulator was 864, not bad for first timers! From there we had two guest speakers. Brian Elbert, US Air Force and former tower chief at KPSM. He received his private pilot certificate with us and is currently working on his instrument rating with CFI Lindsey. He talked to the students about ATC operations and opportunities in aviation. Tom Bake, who is one of our instructors and also a pilot for Southwest, discussed careers in the airlines, and talked about his journey as pilot. We also worked with Paul Davies from PCA and were able to walk the students over to PCA to tour the maintenance hangar. We talked about the engineering and mechanical opportunities and careers in aviation and also got to see many different types of aircraft. We received a lot of positive feedback from the students and it was a blast to host the Sanborn aviation class at CHI! We will be working with them in the future as their class develops and grows.
FUTURE EVENTS:
In the next few weeks, CHI will be hosting a field trip for the Winnacunnet High School students in Paul Gregory’s Aviation Class. It will be set up just like the Sanborn event and allow students to explore different avenues for careers and opportunities in aviation. We will also be hosting a FAAST event through the Portland, ME, FSDO. CHI will be presenting to local pilots on Light Sport Aviation, the rules and regulations associated with LSA, and other important technical aspects.
There’s a lot of exciting things happening at CHI, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds!