Festa helicopter project fuel four would-be-engineers

Festa helicopter project fuel for would-be engineers
By WILLIAM H. SPATARO
(Original publication: July 10, 2007)
I am writing regarding a July 2 Journal News article concerning the termination of the helicopter project at Felix Festa Middle School.
I was dismayed to read that this very worthwhile project had been terminated in such a cavalier fashion without the benefit of discussion of an alternative plan for its completion.
I have been associated with both the helicopter and the solar car projects from their inception after teacher Alan Horowitz asked me to support both projects in my capacity as metallurgy, welding and corrosion engineer. Mr. Horowitz, now retired, started the school's helicopter-building program. I know through my own experience the lengths that Mr. Horowitz has taken to secure funds for the projects, writing many hundreds of letters over the years. His efforts were rewarded with grants and awards from such prestigious institutions as NASA, and simultaneously by two different chapters of the aeronautics and aviation society. A little known fact is that the weight balance nosecone of the helicopter was poured with scrap lead donated by the Indian Point Energy Center.
I assisted Mr. Horowitz through the years with many questions regarding construction and, at Mr. Horowitz's invitation, made visits to the school to speak with the students about materials issues. I was impressed and gratified when some of those very students came up to me during the Engineering EXPO 2006 at Dominican College and EXPO 2007 at Westchester Community College (where I was representing Entergy) to say how much they enjoyed my talks and that they wanted more information about careers in engineering. Such enthusiasm and passion that I see in our next generation gives me hope that our efforts, especially by a teacher like Mr. Horowitz, to inspire by example have not been in vain and that a new crop of engineers will fill the space left when we fade from the scene.
I implore the school administration to revisit the case of the helicopter project and see it through to completion. I understand through speaking with Mr. Horowitz that the project needs only a month or so to complete and that some damage recently incurred on the machine can be replaced or repaired. I, for one, would be thrilled to see the students' faces as their chopper lifts off and soars through the air realizing that they made this glorious flying machine from bits and pieces that came from boxes shipped to the school just a few short years ago.
Let's think of the students; after all, that's what school is all about, isn't it!
The writer is a senior staff metallurgist at Entergy Nuclear Corp.