Oakcrest High School Students Visit the Technical Center

By Ginger Cairnes

Students were amazed with the capabilities in the Tower/TRACON’s “Out-the-Tower View”.

It would seem quite remarkable in today’s world to find a group of high school juniors and seniors who willingly devote their free time after school to enhancing their academic experience – unless you are talking about the Oakcrest High School Math and Engineering Club. Members of this club meet twice a month.

John Wilks explains why we “model”

The club members are interested not only in math, but also in aviation and aeronautical engineering. Rocco Policarpo, the club president, helps arrange trips and coordinates activities that depict the correlation between discrete mathematics and its application in the real world. He contacted me recently because he and his club members felt that the Tech Center would be a great place for their club to visit and interact with employees. With the sponsorship of Oakcrest High Schoolteacher, Stacey Culleny, a trip was arranged that would include focus on math modeling as a means of evaluating the “potential effects of terrain, buildings, and other obstructions and/or siting mistakes”. The students were also introduced to how math is heavily used in navigation systems performance and data evaluation.

Chuck Milk discusses the features of the system in the ETMS lab.

Other examples displayed and discussed in the labs were: functions of air traffic control; the analog world and digital convenience; examples of analog phenomenon such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, speed and velocity; dynamics of motion and use of polar coordinates; radar processing and digital signals; and algorithms and the use of warning/alert messages.

Ed Gaguski and Sue Kleva assist students as they try their skills in handing off aircraft in the STARS lab.

Areas visited included Tower/TRACON Simulation and Modeling, navigation labs in the hangar, cockpit simulators in the hangar, the Standard Terminal Replacement System (STARS), and the Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS).

Mike Magrogan illustrates the use of data collection in respect to navigation of aircraft.

The following employees were responsible for making this visit such an outstanding success: Rodger Bawgus, John Wilks, Huy Dao, Michael Magrogan, Lee Sui, EdGaguski, Sue Kleva, Madurai Vaidyanathan, Allan Manalang, J.T. Skarda, Al Rehman, Calab Bonilla, and Chuck Milk.

Students study the Control Interbus Hardware in the Cockpit Simulator Lab.

Practice for two budding pilots on the Embraer170 Cockpit Simulator.