On Saturday, July 22, 2017, AHS–The Vertical Flight Society's Arizona Chapter volunteers supported the Pima Air & Space Museum STEM event in Tucson, Arizona. (STEM is “science, technology, engineering and mathematics” outreach, targeted for primary and secondary school students.)
The activity went exceedingly well, with more than 700 attendees, more than half of whom were K-12 students. The Society booth was well-positioned in front of a Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior that had seen action in multiple worldwide engagements (with bullet holes and patina to prove it). Other helicopters hung from the ceiling and were located throughout the museum hangars, including a Westland Lynx with British Experimental Rotor Programme (BERP) blades. The Pima Air & Space Museum is one of the world's largest non-government funded aerospace museums.
The AHS booth activity was non-stop, 5–9 pm with the highlight being children assembling rubber band helicopters and flying them to the delight of the crowd. Vertiflite magazines and AHS STEM flyers (and membership applications) were readily available and picked up by many eager hands wanting to learn more about vertical lift and AHS's role in aerospace.
If the turnout at this Pima Air & Space Museum event is any indication of the future, it looks like we have many bright young minds eager to learn about the aerospace sector in general, and more specifically about vertical lift.
