Members of the Caltech/JPL Flying Club, including the individual getting down and dirty under the plane, above, meet once a month at El Monte Airport, where the club’s planes are based, to wash the planes and make any necessary repairs.

THE FLYING CALTECHERS

Aerobatic aviatrix Cecilia Aragon is not the only Caltech alum to have discovered a passion for flying. When the Aero Association of the California Institute of Technology (AACIT) was formed in 1966, its president, Dave Cartwright, PhD ’68, told Caltech’s E&S research magazine, “Assuming the certainty that some Caltech students are going to fly, someplace, somehow, our purpose is to provide the opportunity to fly more safely, to use better equipment, to give serious and detailed flight training, and to provide more available flying time for less money.”

Forty years later, this mission has remained basically the same, although the aero organization has gone through a few changes. It has grown from a single Cessna 150 trainer used by a handful of Caltechers—students, faculty, and staff—to a fleet of two owned and five leased planes and 130 members, including many employees of JPL and others from outside the Caltech community. Kevin Baines, a JPL scientist and the AACIT flight director, estimates that the club has helped train more than 1,000 private pilots. Through AACIT, many members have received their instrument rating and commercial license, while others have become certified flight instructors.

Informally known as the Caltech/JPL Flying Club, the independent, nonprofit organization offers its members relatively low airplane rental rates, an opportunity for beginning pilots to learn how to fly, and camaraderie through its lectures, monthly plane-wash days, and other meetings. Through the club, Caltech students have participated in the annual National Intercollegiate Flying Association’s Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference, competing against other college aviation programs in events such as navigation skills and precision landings.

While many come to the Institute to study aeronautics, it may surprise some of them that they can actually learn how to fly while they are here.

“I wasn’t even aware that the club existed when I was a student,” says David Werntz ’86, director of Caltech’s Administrative Technology Center and now treasurer of the club. Werntz, who joined the club in March 2002, recalls, “I always wanted to learn how to fly, so once I had a little time and money, I said, ‘Let’s go.’” After eight months, he got his pilot’s license and now takes off in one of the club’s planes two or three times a week.

Club rules state that at least 60 percent of all members must be from the Caltech/JPL community (including Caltech alumni). According to Werntz, about two-thirds of the members join to learn how to fly. Over the years, some of its more illustrious members have included former astronauts Jay Apt, formerly of JPL, and John Grunsfeld, late of Caltech’s Space Radiation Lab, and current astronaut Garrett Reisman, PhD ’97. One of its relatively new members is Alice Huang, faculty associate in biology, senior councilor for external relations, and wife of President David Baltimore.

“Flying was something that I always wanted to do,” she says. “When I was young and had the time, I didn’t have the money. By the time I had the money, I didn’t have the time.”

Huang says that she joined the club in 2002 because of its good safety record and its camaraderie, and because it helps match students with instructors. Although she is still working toward her license, early last year she (and an instructor) flew Baltimore to Catalina Island for lunch. “He fell asleep on the way back and later said that was the highest compliment he could have given me. If he’s nervous about my flying, he doesn’t show it.”

The flying club’s safety record is better than the general aviation average, say its members. They note that club planes have been in a few accidents over the years. There was one fatal crash in 1985 when heavy winds propelled a plane carrying a flying instructor and his student into a mountain in Kern County, killing both.

Members say that the organization is careful about maintenance, taking planes out of service when there’s any question about safety. “We feel like we have a higher level of maintenance than the typical commercial flying school,” says Jim Kaufman, PhD ’91, a club member since 1986 and former club president, who works for JPL managing advanced mission studies. After all, he points out, “Many of our members are rocket scientists who send spacecraft to the outer edges of the solar system and beyond.”

AACIT has lately focused more on outreach with the Caltech/JPL communities. For example, it recently created an earthquake scramble team to be available to fly geologists and other scientists to the scene of seismic events for aerial surveys. The team was activated for the first time last December following the San Simeon quake in central California.

For more information on the club, its facilities, planes, and fees, check out its website at aacit.caltech.edu.

• Here She Goes, Loop de Loop (link)