In May 2018, the Hampton Roads Chapter made awards to two local high school seniors in southeast Virginia. The 2018 Robert Powell Scholarship was awarded to Grace Vidlak; she was attending Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg, Virginia, and is an exemplary scholar. She conducted collegiate level research at NASA Langley Research Center on the dynamics of fuselage deformation experienced during crash landings. Grace is pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia and hopes one day to obtain a PhD. The Robert Powell Scholarship was established in 2007 to honor the long-time treasurer of the Hampton Roads Chapter whose stewardship of the chapter's financial assets enabled the chapter's STEM outreach program, including its scholarship fund.
The 2018 Christopher Gavora Scholarship was awarded to Chet Wiltshire, a student at Ocean Lakes High School. Chet is a proven academic with experience working with professional UAV photography. He is an Eagle Scout with multiple varsity letters and was a finalist in the Chapter’s Tidewater Science and Engineering Fair Awards this year for his work tuning a proportional–integral–derivative PID controller for his drone. Chet also plans to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering. The scholarship was established in 2007 to honor Christopher Gavora — the son of COL William Gavora, the former Commander of the US Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) — who was killed in a tragic high school baseball practice accident.
The chapter’s website is hrc.vtol.org.
