Blog

Greetings, fellow aviation enthusiasts, prospective students, and industry partners! Today, I want to share my incredible experience working on safety and sustainability projects with industry partners and how it has shaped my perspective as an undergraduate aviation student. So grab your aviator shades, buckle up, and let's dive right in!

Think about the first time you were at a brand-new airport as a solo student. Were you nervous or overwhelmed? If you’re not a pilot, imagine being in a new place for the first time, a place where it is vital to do everything perfectly. Would you feel stressed out? As student pilots, we’ve all had similar experiences, arriving at an airport having no idea where to park, get fuel or get your much desired logbook stamp. To support our peers and avoid these issues in the future, a group of student pilots are creating a new initiative. 

With small e-planes aiming for the pilot training market, a key question is how many times can you take-off, fly a standard circuit, and land before you have to recharge? Of course, batteries will improve in the future, but what is practical with today’s technology?

Overheating and fire risk are two important concerns regarding electric aviation technology. Aircraft systems are designed with safety features and warning systems in mind to address these risks. So, what happens when you run charge/discharge cycles on a hot afternoon?

When I signed up to volunteer at this year’s Girls Can Fly to represent the University of Waterloo, I had no idea what to expect, and simply put I was blown away. Volunteering, and being able to represent the university was a great honour. Entertaining the children who attended the event, by creating a tornado in a bottle, and answering questions regarding the aviation program was all very enjoyable.

Dr. Derek T. Robinson has a unique vision for the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics, that comes, in part, through the lens of a camera mounted high above the ground on one of his drones.

Dr. Mihaela Vlasea is helping build a new aviation industry, one airplane part at a time. A Waterloo Faculty of Engineering professor as well as an associate director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics, she’s a recognized expert in metal additive manufacturing — popularly known as 3D printing — and uses its wide ranging-technologies to fuse materials together to produce a vast array of new products for the aviation industry and beyond.

Monday, May 16th marked a successful first day of e-plane ground runs for the Pipistrel Velis Electro. The Velis team, consisting of Kyra, Tyler, Gabriel and Dr. Paul Parker, performed several ground runs to verify the performance of our brand new electric aircraft. 

The e-plane team of three UW Aviation students (Gabriel, Kyra and Tyler), WISA researcher Paul Parker, and WWFC staff continued measuring the Pipistrel Velis Electro’s performance in a series of ground runs prior to flying the plane in the air.

My thoughts and experience at WISA Talks: Drones in Science and Industry

I am in the last year of the Geography and Environmental Management in Geomatics program at Waterloo. I originally enrolled in the course GEOG 270- Knowledge Requirements of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) as my fun interesting elective. Through participating in the WISA Talks: Drones in Science and Industry session, it transformed my perspective of drones into something more than that: a potential career path.