George S. Middleton High School

AIAA Student Branch

and Aerospace Technology

We Have The Knack.

When did you know that you wanted to work in the aerospace industry or decided to make aerospace your pre-college vocational preparation objective? For some it may be a specific moment, for others it may have been a gradual realization that space and flight had captured their imagination and just wouldn’t let go.  The following responses are those of students in the George S. Middleton High School magnet program housed in the Middleton Academy of Aeronautics & Astronautics studying the Aerospace Technology program:

When Did You Know

Jess Lubbe (2009)

          For me the realization that I wanted to be involved with the aerospace program was a very gradual process, starting later in middle school and working its way through my time in high school. In middle school the Middleton CAP squadron came to my school and did a presentation on what they did, at this point I was interested I thought this might be a really cool thing to try. This planted a seed in my mind and when I reached high school, I looked at all the options I had to work with planes. Aerospace came up, and I took the opportunity.

     My first year I started building things like blimps and hot air balloons; the class was involved and I learned more that I could ever imagine. The Second year was even better; the teacher gave a quarter-scale, acrobatic plane and told us to build it. My group and I worked very hard all year to put together this behemoth of a plane, and at the end of the year our hard work paid of. We took the plane to a RC plane field and we flew it. I am proud to say my plane flew the best! It was such and incredible experience to watch something that my friends and I worked so hard on come to life and take to the skies!

     Now I know I want to be a part of the aerospace program because of all the things I have done over the years. I am now on the final stages of my high school aerospace journey with a design of my own. My group and I are building a 12x12x6 Micro Plane completely from scratch, a design we have come up with on our own with only research from the internet and all that we have learned over our time here at Middleton High School.

Taylor Anderson (2010)

             Personally my realization upon Astronautical engineering came gradually throughout my life. As a mere child I have always been amazed about the world around me and try to solve the mysteries of this life that surrounds me. In my younger years my mysteries were VCR’s and how to get that top off of the cookie jar but as time progressed this curiosity upon my surroundings lead me to the vast unknown called space.  After discovering the existence of space I began studying such events with my mini-telescope, looking back it wasn’t all that extraordinary but man as a10yr old child that was the greatest thing in the world to see the moon so close to the eye.

             Simultaneously to my exploration of space I had an intense love to build things. When I was little I had a lego table in which everyday I would go to and build some amazing object such as castles and dinosaurs. Once I used up my own imagination I would search around the house for something that would be interesting to make then once I spot the perfect match I would create it out of legos and of course add my own modifications.

             At first I never realized the connection between these fascinations until Stewart middle school. For elementary school I was just in a normal public school however as I was a bout to graduate I received something in the mail from Stewart about joining a magnet school. Within their programs they described these unknown phases such as engineering and Aerospace. With more careful reading these programs match perfectly with my obsession you might say thus creating my combination career of Astronautical Engineering.

. . . .and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I wanted to make my living as a . . . .

Allison Chesser (2010)

     Ever since I read the Animorphs book series in elementary school, I loved the idea of space. I liked imagining outer space, especially black holes, but even though I didn't know what type of engineer I wanted to be, I never considered making space a career. I knew I didn't want to be a civil engineer, so when I discovered that Engineering 5 focused on civil engineering, I decided to make the switch to Aerospace, because it was a subject I was interested in. I suppose what I’m really interested in is how the fabric of space-time is distorted by matter, dark matter and dark energy, and the wormholes that may or may not exist in black holes. Learning how planets and galaxies move in space, and the math governing their movement, would appear to be the first step.

Robby Donaghy (2012)

     I think I knew that I wanted to work in the aerospace field some time during the ages of seven and eleven. I spent the weekends and summers of these four years building a Renegade Spirit biplane with my father. This really got me interested in how airplanes worked and what improvements could be made to improve their abilities. Keep in mind though, that this was not just a model or something of that sort, my father has flown a total of about 60 hours in it and it fits in a standard two car garage. I have ever since immersed myself in things involving the design and physics of aircraft. I really got to thinking while constructing the biplane and I decided that I would like to know more about how the craft worked and help to further the general knowledge of the subject as well. Before that time, I had always thought that airplanes were merely hollow metal or wooden structures with a motor, propeller or jet, a cockpit, and maybe some other rooms for passengers and storage. Never could I have imagined the complexity of cables, wires, instruments, pulleys, and rivets, so many rivets in even a craft so small that it could fit in my garage! Over time, my understanding of all the components of air craft evolved until I was thinking about how to improve current aircraft that I saw.