Published in Midwest Flyer – August/September 2017
WASHINGTON, DC – Students and their teacher from Olney High School in Olney, Texas, won an all-expenses-paid trip to Glasair Aviation in Arlington, Washington, to spend two weeks building a Glasair Sportsman airplane, as the winners of the GAMA/Build A Plane 2017 Aviation Design Challenge. The winning team arrived in Arlington, Washington, on June 18 and departed on July 1, finishing the plane a day early.
The students assembled the Sportsman as part of the fifth annual Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) competition. The airplane’s owner, Ken Baur, and his son, Mike, worked alongside the students to build the airplane. GAMA President and CEO Pete Bunce, former Jeppesen CEO Mark Van Tine, and other staff from GAMA and Jeppesen helped oversee the construction, led by Glasair Aviation staff. Additionally, Siemens Government Technologies CEO Barbara Humpton and a team from Click Bond visited the plant during the building project. The Sportsman is a kit airplane that can be assembled in two weeks through Glasair’s “Two Weeks To Taxi” program.
The 2017 Aviation Design Challenge is sponsored by Air Tractor, BBA Aviation, Bose Corporation, Click Bond, Embraer, Garmin International, Glasair Aviation, Gulfstream Aerospace, Jeppesen, Jet Aviation, JSSI, Redbird Flight Simulations, Siemens, Textron Aviation and Wipaire Inc.
To learn more about the organizations involved in the project, visit gama.aero, buildaplane.com, glasairaviation.com and flytolearn.com.