Areospace

This last week we had the privilege of going to Grand Forks ND to the University of North Dakota (UND) for their Areospace program.  There were about 60 4-H kids from around ND there.  The Areospace program is to show kids a crash course on how to fly air planes and to show them the air program that the College has.  UND has some of the best training stuff for the Whole Nation.  They have over 120 air planes for student pilots and their flight simulators are some of the best in the world.  About 1/4 of the students at UND have something to do with the Areospace program.  It was very impressive, the kids that are in the Areospace program at UND showed us around.  We were 1st priority and they did an excellent job answering questions and being our tour guides. 

 First we rode in 3 UND buses to go out to their air port

 When we got there they divided us into 3 groups each with about 20 kids

 They had 5 air planes on display for us to crawl into and check out!

 We all really enjoyed it but Paul enjoyed it the most.  He has a flight simulator that he uses on the computer here at home.  It was fun for him to see that all a little bigger and close up.

 There was always someone to show you something or to answer your questions

 After our tours we went to one of the schools 4 cafeterias for dinner

 In the afternoon we built rockets to launch.  We never got to launch them though because it was too wet outside .

   We got to see their 360 wrap around screen for their Control Tower training.  When you were in the inside of the 360 wrap around screen it felt like you were in a real live air port tower.  all the screens around you were moving and the guys in the "tower" were telling planes where to go and when to land.

                They added snow just for us since we are having such a wonderfully springy April!!

The flight simulators were really cool.  you sat in a little plastic cockpit and you have controls in front of you just like in a real air plane.  They had 3 projectors shining in front of you and it was live just like you were flying it.  It was really real like.

Stephen Miller one of our Church friends is going to school at UND and so we went out to Culvers for ice cream and them to our Motel room for a while.