Thursday, March 3, 2016

Goodbye Passenger Plane Hello SAR Part 1

We were very lucky this week to have a tour to the air base to see the 
Search and Rescue aircraft.
 We went to tour the Cormorant helicopter
 and the Buffalo airplane.
Four pilots toured us through both and answered all our questions.
I gave the children a little booklet to record what they saw.
We saw how they turn the plane and helicopters, the bubble (observation) windows,
the seat, the wings, and the propellers. 

Back at school I took down our passenger airplane,
I didn't want to cut into that cardboard,
found another box
and started to build the Buffalo.
The box isn't pretty but we like to reuse as often as possible.
Inside is a raised platform which the children had to walk across to get to 
the pilot's seat.
I didn't get a picture of it but there is a ramp at the end of the platform.
That was a challenge for us, during our tour, to climb up the big ramp 
to get inside the plane.
Observation windows are located on both sides of our plane
just like the Buffalo.
As the children played the talk of 'where are the wings?' occurred.
Luckily one of the fathers works at the base and is very
familiar with planes.
I was struggling how we would attach the wings to the sides of the plane,
and still give the children space to play around it.
Then our 'technician' reminded me that the wings on a Buffalo
go across the top of the plane.
Which was brilliant because they will also help to stabilize the box.
As the dad worked on the wings, the children grabbed our basket of tools
and got to work.
Love this picture of how the girl inside is watching her dad work
and the boy outside is keeping an eye on what is happening.
By the end of the morning we finished work of putting the tail wing on
 and propeller placed at the nose.
Stay tuned.