Blog

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.  

Innovative approaches for pilot training and assessment are urgently needed to meet aviation needs as the demand for pilots in Canada is projected to exceed training capacity by 2030. Technology such as eye tracking could be harnessed to add value to the currently used instruction methods to make pilot training more efficient in cost and time. 

Three UW aviation students joined WISA’s Paul Parker and the WWFC team to put the Pipistrel Velis Electro through its first set of Canadian ground runs. The goal was to measure how much mission time or training time is available in the e-plane under different power settings. Before flying the aircraft in the air, these ground runs will give pilots a good indication of how much time they can plan to use.  

As many upper-year aviation students complete their final study terms at the University of Waterloo, the transition from university to the aviation industry can be difficult and demanding. To ease this process, the University of Waterloo Aviation Society (UWAS) came together to create the first Professional Development Day specifically targeted for Waterloo aviation students.

My name is Aiden, a second-year Geography and Aviation student and a member to the Waterloo Warriors Varsity Track team and the University of Waterloo’s sports business association.  It is an honour to share my aviation experiences with you, and I aim to inspire you to achieve dreams beyond your imagination and leave a lasting impact through your legacy.