Happy Ending Internship

I finally made it out to see Steve Saint at I-TEC yesterday. As it happened it was the last day for an intern from LeTourneau University who had been there all summer working on a system that modifies an aircraft. That's all I will say in the way of description because it looks like a patent will be sought for it. They were going to try flying the latest version after numerous modifications and since I was standing there Steve asked me to grab their video camera and document it in keeping with the I-TEC “five minute rule” (If you are standing around there for more than five minutes, you get put to work!)

The mission almost got scrubbed because of some wind conditions. But then they decided to push ahead and I ended up shooting the first flights of an extremely successful prototype. The wind ended up helping to prove the value of the system. My convertible got pressed into duty to do some running alongside shots utilizing a closed runway that was being used for the testing. It all just came together yesterday afternoon and everyone was elated that the goals for the project had been achieved.

It was all the more fun because the student, Jonathan, was able to be there for it on the last day before he had to leave to go back to school. And he got a ride in his invention with video of it to boot. This kid, a mechanical engineering student who was a sophomore last year, continued on the work this summer after being a part of a class that had worked on it for two semesters last year. His basically single-handed persistence solving the remaining problems saw it through to a glorious success in the air yesterday. And God orchestrated my showing up there at precisely the right time to lend a hand in documenting it all. What great fun! Steve was so happy he insisted on a celebration so the whole I-TEC family that happened to be around went to Sonny's for a big bar-b-q dinner last night. What a wonderful boost to Jonathan's ambitions for engineering. We were all so happy for him.

And the project, well, it has great promise to revolutionize this particular niche of aviation with significant impact on it's utility for missions applications.