Copter Crash Course
Eileen adjusts the Honeybee, watched by Emily and Mary. Annie takes a picture.
Looking for help, Eileen showed up at Baylands late in the morning Thursday.
She had a helicopter, an Esky Honeybee, and she wanted to learn to fly it in one month. More precisely, she wanted her 16-year-old daughter, Emily, to learn to fly.
We helped her sort out her gear. She had two bad batteries, a flaky charger and a helicopter in need of tuning.
Danh Le checked out the helicopter, made adjustments and flew it. Mark Gitin loaned her a battery to enable the flight. Oscar Yatco, Rick Carmichael and David Galvin also helped her out.
She came back Friday and spent a bit of time hovering the helicoper close to the ground.
Saturday, Eileen arrived at Baylands with her daughter and two friends, Annie and Mary.
Flanked by Mary and Annie, Emily looks up from the documentation.
The three girls are a team competing in Tech Challenge 2009, sponsored by the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation. Eileen is coaching the team.
None of the girls can fly a helicopter, but they intend to learn within three weeks.
That’s a very aggressive timetable, but they’re quite determined.
This year’s Tech Challenge, which is open to anyone in the 5th to 12th grade age range, focuses on volcanos.
Participants must deliver a payload of six ping pong balls to a target inside a make-believe volcano 20 feet away.
The volcano is 12 feet in diameter at the base, rising 8 feet to a 1.5-foot diameter landing spot.
The girls plan to equip the helicopter with a special device that will allow them to remotely release the payload of ping pong balls.
Dave Melara checks the controls and trims.
That device is a deep secret, their competitive edge. For security reasons, I was asked not to publish pictures.
Today, Dave Melara and Rick coached the women, showing them how they should practice and giving them each some hands-on stick time.
Eileen and the three girls all smiled during their low-to-the-ground flights. They like to fly.
The session was a success, a fine start.
I hope to photograph their participation in the April 25 event.
Looks like Emily had plenty of directors there in Pic #8.
Great story!
n8
That is one big technical challenge! The weather does not look good for learning to fly helis this week! Best of luck!
I hope we get posted on the results of the competition!
Hey did we ever get an outcome? Was the heli successfully piloted to deliver the cargo into the volcano?
We never made it to the volcano, but we did win an award!