South Central Section Aerospace Activities Houston Chapter

Above and Beyond
By Brenda Landing, Aerospace Chairman

Our Chapter's day with the Girl Scouts, who were working on their Aviation Badge. The San Jacinto Girl Scout Council has named their badge, "Above and Beyond".

The day started out a bit cloudy, but cleared off beautifully, on Saturday, December 6, 2008. We all met in the lobby of Tomball Jet Center located at Hooks Airport.  Registration started at 9:30 am and the desk was handled by Grace Chantos and Lois Gronau-Fietz. We had 24 Girl Scouts and four adults, some leaders, some drivers and several 99s.

At 10:00 am, Chapter Aerospace Chairman, Brenda Landing gave introductions, agendas and quickly turned over the workshop to Chapter President Elizabeth Frankoski. Elizabeth gave background information on The 99s and her life experiences as mother, career woman, grandmother and pilot. The girls were really excited to hear from 99s member, Becky Nickell, who described her absolute fear of flying. Becky explained how she was able to overcome her fear and the self confidence aviation has instilled in her everyday tasks.

We broke for lunch, some of the girls were offered at look at a flight school upstairs and others were with Elizabeth to do a preflight on her Cessna 182. Also, a trail through the hangar provided an up close look at corporate aircraft and helicopters. Our last speaker of the day was Marianne Dyson, former NASA traffic controller and currently author for children's books and magazines. Marianne did a spectacular job of explaining how to fall without hitting the ground. She had a very detailed mock up of the space shuttle.  She brought plenty of handouts for the Girl Scouts.

The workshop was so successful; we were requested to do another class in the spring.  The date for the spring aviation badge workshop was Saturday, May 23, 2009.

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last update: 26 November, 2010