GoFly, Author at GoFly Prize - Page 4 of 10 GoFly Prize

Editor’s Note: We’re excited to introduce you to the innovative, bold, and talented individuals competing in GoFly. Our teams come from all over the world, shaped by their diverse backgrounds and unique life experiences. We can’t wait to see what they’ll build, but in the meantime, get to know the people behind the devices.

Team Silverwing, based in the Netherlands, is comprised of a diverse set of engineers with different passions and focus areas. What unites them? Their determination to one day make their personal flying device, the Silverwing, accessible to all.

For team members Ralph Krook and Thom van den Homberg, being a part of Silverwing has been a phenomenal experience. It’s a busy time for the team, with the building process in full swing. Read on to learn what drives them, and what excites them about the competition.

How did you realize you were passionate about aviation?

Thom van den Homberg: I am a mechanical engineer and one of the most enjoyable parts of participating in GoFly has been the collaboration with the aerospace engineers I work with. There is a lot in the aviation world that can still be invented.

Ralph Krook: As a kid, I traveled a lot with my parents in airplanes and was always fascinated by them.

When did you decide to pursue a career in aviation?

Krook: I decided in high-school that aviation engineering was for me. Not only is it interesting and challenging, but it also has a fun aspect to it.

Van den Homberg: I thought I would continue to be a mechanical engineer but participation in GoFly has persuaded me to do a specialization in structures.

What were some of your favorite courses in school?

Van den Homberg: You would think that my favorite course in high school would be physics, but funnily enough, it was biology. However, this changed in university, where my favorite subject became mathematics. Through math, you learn how to solve puzzles and I love solving puzzles.

Krook: Physics, chemistry, and surprisingly, ancient Greek.

What excites you about GoFly?

Van den Homberg: Being part of this is exciting because it gives you freedom to think outside the box, and work together with like-minded people from different multidisciplinary backgrounds, which results in innovation.

The GoFly Prize challenge brought together this team full of passionate engineers. Passion is what drives us. It’s fun to have heated discussions with my team members because these conversations reveal elements of our design that can be improved upon, as well as different ways to improve them.

Krook: There are several things that excite me. First, you have to design and build an aircraft in such a short period of time. Second, I get to work with other passionate team members who specialize in different fields. Finally, I love using advanced technology to create an aircraft that is different than anything anyone else out there.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device? How do you think you will change the world?

Van den Homberg: I see a future where regular people are able to fly a Silverwing. I want everyone to be able to experience the feeling of flying and seeing the world from a different perspective.

Krook: Once it is integrated into society, which will take a while, I imagine a world with people flying everywhere in their personal aircraft. These devices will change the way we view transportation.

What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently? How do you plan to overcome it?

Van den Homberg: The biggest challenge for me is that my background is in mechanical engineering. My teammates have a lot more experience in the technical field of aerospace and this allows them to make better technical decisions. I overcome this challenge by learning from them and always being open to discussions. But increasingly, I find myself thinking not only like a mechanical engineer, but also like an aerospace engineer.

Krook: The biggest challenge is the time frame—we have a really tight schedule. Also, from an engineering standpoint, the control system is a big challenge for me. To overcome these obstacles, we just have to work really hard with the time that we have and test the model as much as possible.

What’s one fun fact about you that your team members don’t know?

Van den Homberg: I have played volleyball for 13 years, but now I am really into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It is a great sport—it’s like playing chess with the human body. You have to think of the opponent’s steps ahead of time, make quick decisions and act fast. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a great way to distract the mind after a day of working on building an aircraft.

Krook: I got my pilot’s license for operating a single-engine aircraft at 19 years old. I went to Florida for flying school and lived in an airport at the flight academy for two months. It was quite tough. I wasn’t the most talented pilot, so I had to study and work harder than the others, but I made it. Now I fly occasionally in the Netherlands between smaller airports. I really enjoy flying because I get to control such a complicated device.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Van den Homberg: In order to create something, you should not fixate on making it perfect, or you’ll never finish creating it. Instead, you should make it as good as you possibly can. Once it’s finished, you can learn from it and improve it. Building is a process that never ends, and therefore there isn’t a single perfect solution.

Krook: If you work really hard and believe in what you’re doing, you can achieve anything, even if it seems impossible.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

Colin Hilton, the sole member of Team Teledrone from the United Kingdom, envisions a future where traveling is as simple as placing a phone call. After leaving an office job behind to execute his vision, Hilton is now pursuing the dream of building a personalized flying device as part of the GoFly Prize challenge.

Read on to learn more about what sparked his early interest in aviation, and what he considers to be the biggest challenge for personal flight.

Was there something that inspired your interest in aviation when you were a child?

Growing up, I remember literally looking up to the Airfix models that hung from my childhood bedroom ceiling. They intrigued me.

What’s your earliest memory associated with flight?

My earliest memory is a flight I took across the English Channel in a Bristol Freighter when I was just a child.

What were some of your favorite courses in school?

English literature, as I’ve never been able to separate the sciences from the arts.

When did you decide to pursue a career in aviation?

I worked with computers until my hatred of offices exceeded my hatred of programming. That’s when I turned to aviation.

What excites you about GoFly?

I’m motivated by the chance to steer flight in a direction that enables the individual.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device?

One day, individuals will be able to step into a device that will transport them to locations that previously they could only phone.

What is the biggest challenge standing in the way of personal flight?

People’s fear of flight is the biggest challenge when it comes to personal flight innovation. My goal is to normalize 3D transportation to the same extent that telephony has become mainstream.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Listen carefully to advice, and then ignore it.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

Pete Bitar of team VertiCycle is based in Anderson, Indiana—and building a personal VTOL device has long been a dream of his. With GoFly, he is committed to making his VertiCycle soar.

Read on to learn more about Bitar’s career and the ambition that’s propelling him forward.

How did you realize you were passionate about aviation?

When I was six years old, my father returned home from business travel and brought me a toy airplane. I’ve wanted to fly ever since.

When did you decide to pursue a career in aviation?

In 2006, I decided to start my first aviation-related company and it proved to be successful, so I continued in that direction. My career hasn’t been an accident, but at the same time, I didn’t start out as anything more than a hobbyist. I learned a lot through experience and actually building stuff that flew. Making money at it has been challenging, but not impossible, and I’m at the point now where I’ve dialed in the right marketing, designs, IP and approach to be much more successful.

What excites you about GoFly?

It has been my passion to develop a personal, VTOL flying device throughout my whole life. I’ve been actively working toward that goal since I was 13 years old, when I started learning to fly an ultralight aircraft and saving up to buy components for a VTOL device. GoFly has brought my passion into the mainstream. Plus, the time and technology of today’s market are finally aligned with the potential realization of the dreams I’ve had for 40 years.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device?

There’s more to it than just my device, but devices like mine will make three-dimensional travel accessible to many. There will always be people that are afraid of flight, and won’t choose to move that way on a day-to-day basis, but I would say that up to 10 percent of the world’s population would like to be able to use a personal, eVTOL device to get from point A to point B.

With that said, making it accessible, affordable, and mass-producible is my focus. We have an opportunity here with the GoFly Prize to bring the needed attention to what is possible, and demonstrate that personal flight is approachable for ordinary people, everywhere.

What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently? How do you plan to overcome it?

Time is the biggest challenge, but I plan to work really efficiently to use the time I have to achieve the results I need to achieve before the deadlines.

What’s one fun fact about you?

I’ve played piano for 48 years.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Build something and test it in reality—you’ll learn so much more than just by doing calculations, drawings, and computer simulations.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

For the members of team teTra from Japan, the GoFly Prize challenge has provided an opportunity to not only become innovators in personal flight, but also connect with fellow aviation enthusiasts. The group met through the competition itself, initially communicating and collaborating via the GoFly Prize forum before coming together to develop their device.

As the team continues to build, captain Tasuku Nakai knows that it’ll be a challenge to introduce the world to an entirely new mode of transportation. But Tasuku finds confidence in inventions of the past—after all, ships, cars and even airplanes were once brand new technologies that seemed daunting.

Read on to learn more about what spurred team captain Nakai’s interest in aviation, and how teTra plans to shape the future of flight.

What is your earliest memory associated with flight?

My first memory of flight is a trip to Europe when I was nine years old. The acceleration, velocity, view and just the fact that I was actually flying excited me so much. That is when I realized that I want to fly and manipulate a device by myself.

What excites you about GoFly?

This competition requires a high integration of technologies, which is a challenge for everyone competing. But, on the other hand, the challenge is incredibly exciting because whoever wins the GoFly prize, their personal flying device will have the potential to drive worldwide change.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device?

Historically, people don’t know that they need a new technology until it’s created. People couldn’t, for example, imagine the possibility of a ship or an airplane. The winning GoFly device will give passengers the opportunity to see the world from high above the ground freely, closely, easily and affordably. It’ll change behavior with regard to transportation as well, beyond what people can imagine.

What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently? How do you plan to overcome it?

Safety is our biggest challenge, but our ancestors have created new tools for generations, testing cars, ships, planes and other machines with their intelligence and passionate effort. When it comes to our GoFly device, we will test each element one by one with eager eyes until we see it in the sky.

Was there someone who inspired your interest in aviation when you were a child? Who did you look up to?

When I was a kid, I took a course at the Chiba Museum of Science and Industry where we had to craft little wooden model planes. The instructor in that course really inspired me to keep building.

What were your favorite courses in school? How did they enrich your understanding of aviation?

At the University of Tokyo, I learned a lot from my mechanical engineering courses. These classes taught me to understand machines on both a micro and a macro-level. They also helped me develop an elasticity of mind to deal with and predict problems in different aspects of the device we’re now building.

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

Team Aeroxo, a nine-person crew from Moscow, Russia, knows the clock is ticking when it comes to building the prototype of their GoFly Prize device. But team captain Vladimir Spinko also understands that taking extra time and care to perform necessary calculations, run tests and execute simulations will pay off in the long haul.

As the team wraps up research and development, Aeroxo is preparing to move their headquarters to Riga, Latvia, where they’ll continue building and perfecting until they bring their entry into the GoFly Prize challenge to life.

It’s an exciting time for Team Aeroxo—read on to learn more about Spinko, the leader at their helm.

How did you realize you were passionate about aviation? What’s your earliest memory associated with flight?

My earliest aviation memory is being a four-year-old kid, going on vacation with my parents and flying on a Tu-134 jet airliner. It wasn’t until high school, however, that I realized that flights are much more convenient than trains or cars.

What excites you about GoFly?

It is a great opportunity to compete with teams from all over the world.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device? How do you think you will change the world?

We envision shorter, faster, and more convenient trips that will make people happier.

What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently? How do you plan to overcome it?

Timing. We have to present a flying prototype in about a year, and that’s going to be really tough. Our team is going to do our the best with numerical and theoretical calculations to minimize probable errors during our experiments and save time.

What’s one fun fact about you that your team members don’t know?

I have a fear of heights, so standing on a balcony scares me. However, I am absolutely comfortable flying in an airplane.

What were some of your favorite courses in school? How did they enrich your understanding of aviation?

Math and physics. I have a technical background in applied physics, so the understanding of aviation comes easier to me than to the non-tech guys.

What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received from a mentor?

“Do your best during design and simulations, as prototypes always underperform compared to initial expectations.”

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

Editor’s Note: Over the next two years, we’ll be hosting a series of GoFly Master Lectures where industry experts share advice, insights, and answer questions from anyone interested in participating in the GoFly Prize.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Raja Maharajh, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president and general counsel, responsible for leading Pratt & Whitney’s Legal Services team with overall responsibility for the company’s legal matters, as well as contracts, corporate ethics, government compliance and government security.Maharajh brings more than 20 years of legal and engineering experience to this role. He has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility since joining the UTC Legal department in 2004. Prior to being named to his current position in November 2016, Maharajh was the vice president and counsel for Pratt & Whitney’s large commercial engines business.

In this video, he offers legal guidance for protecting your IP and other sensitive technologies.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Colonel John W. Jones. Colonel Jones serves as the commander of the U.S. Army Redstone Test Center, where he directs a 1,300 person workforce of military personnel, army civilians and contractors conducting developmental testing on a portfolio of rockets and missiles. Jones has 28 years of service as an army aviator. He has actively conducted experimental flight test for 8 years.

In this lecture, Colonel Jones offers recommendations for risk reduction during aircraft testing.

Whether he was building his own little airplane in the garage or standing at an airport fence watching takeoffs, Jim Corning knew since he was just three years old that aviation would be in his future. Since then, he has worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), learned to fly, and built two aircraft-part manufacturing companies.

Now, Corning is working on his entry for the GoFly Prize challenge. Funding is one of his biggest challenges at the moment, he says, but he’s determined to do what it takes to see his device soar.

Read on to find out more about Corning’s career and his vision for the future of aviation.

How did you realize you were passionate about aviation? What’s your earliest memory associated with flight?

I’ve wanted to fly for as long as I can remember. When I was three or four years old, my dad built me a wooden box with wings and a tail, and I tried pretty mightily to figure out a way to get that thing off the ground!

What excites you about the GoFly Prize challenge?

GoFly is applying just the right amount of pressure at just the right time to bring the next wave of aircraft out into the light. A lot of people are already working on these personal flyers, and the combination of prize money and community will surely accelerate that process.

What does the world look like after you create your flying device?

That is fun to imagine, isn’t it? Personal aviation could change a lot of things. For one, people might be able to see what’s hidden where the highways don’t run and develop a deeper sense of concern for the environment. Borders may also become more porous, and border walls could eventually become an anachronism. Emergency first response and search and rescue operations will also likely be executed much faster, since rescuers will be able to get into much tighter places.

As for me, I look forward to visiting a motorcycle rally on my machine!

What is your biggest challenge in the GoFly Prize competition currently? How do you plan to overcome it?

Funding. We are looking to raise about $75K for an engine, electric motors, and machining services. I am talking to potential sponsors, looking for potential customers such as the Department of Defense, and considering more grass-roots approaches including crowdfunding and selling T-shirts.

When did you decide to pursue a career in aviation?

It was around 1985. I had a private pilot’s license, the industry I was working in at the time was headed for a fall, and General Dynamics Fort Worth (where F-16s are built) was hiring. Since then, I have worked for the FAA and for Mooney Aircraft, been a consulting FAA-DER, and built two aviation companies, one making composite parts and the other producing bulletproof panels for aircraft.

Was there someone who inspired your interest in aviation when you were a child? Who did you look up to?

I read everything I could find about the Wright Brothers, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Glenn Curtiss, Charles Lindbergh, and many other test pilots and astronauts. My parents helped provide books and took me to the airport fence a few times. I even watched that goofy movie Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines 10 or 15 times.

I also really look up to aerospace engineer Burt Rutan and admire his designs, but I have never met him or had a chance to talk to him.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor?

Never give up!

Want to see your team featured in a Q&A as well? Fill out our questionnaire to get started!

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Joe Nickerson, Flying Qualities Manager and Associate Technical Fellow at Boeing Vertical Lift in Philadelphia. Nickerson has experience in handing qualities, wind tunnel testing, and aeronautical engineering. Nickerson attended the University of Notre Dame and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has worked on a number of rotorcraft including the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, and the Comanche and Chinook helicopters.

In this lecture, he discusses designing devices with stability and control in mind.

For the latest in our series of “Master Lectures,” we welcome Christina Polaski, the Global Social Media Manager at Pratt & Whitney where she leads the company’s global social media and audience engagement strategy across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in support of key business objectives, including product positioning, recruiting and growing brand awareness and affinity.

In the past, she has worked with companies to develop paid, owned and earned strategies to drive revenue growth and support their brands, products and services. Her key areas of expertise include B2B social media, content marketing and public relations.

In this lecture, she offers teams advice for creating and managing their social media presence.