The Patch

“The Patch”

It’s a relatively small memento made from a piece of cloth with a few stitches of colored thread. It’s a patch measuring four inches in diameter with the logo of a radio control model airplane club from anywhere USA embroidered on it. It won’t mean much to most people, but to the members of the South Bend Radio Control Club, it’s something we won’t soon forget. That’s because it recently returned from a trip aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, Mission STS-128, that transported it over 5,702,716 miles before Astronaut Kevin Ford presented it back to club members Scott Thompson and Terry Rensberger on Tuesday September 29, 2009.

The significance of the patch’s journey is in some way the recognition of a journey that the South Bend Radio Control club began about six years ago. The Notre Dame Aerospace Design Class, under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Corke and Dr. Robert Nelson, has been striving over the years to give students an edge in their field by challenging them to put their education to practical use. Every year students are divided into teams and given an assignment to create a flying aircraft that meets specific criteria and performance goals. Predicting the performance of the aircraft is of utmost importance. Local radio control club modelers have flight tested their aircraft over the years to help them achieve this goal.

For the students to see the aircraft through from conceptual design to completed flight testing in one semester is a daunting task. When modelers Scott Thompson and Paul Ditsler got involved, they saw an opportunity to use their years of experience in radio control modeling not just to fly the aircraft but also to help the students complete their designs with greater success. What started as a couple of visits at the beginning of the semester have grown into extended involvement throughout the entire aircraft development process. Club member, Terry Rensberger, has now stepped up to the challenge both in the classroom and on the flight line. Other club members have made themselves available for advice on the test flight days. Sharing their knowledge on structural design, power and control systems have substantially improved both the structural quality and flyability of the project airplanes.

It has been the perfect merging of an interest club with its community. Radio control model airplane builders are a diverse group with backgrounds from engineering, technical, and other trades. Many have had some involvement with other aspects of aviation. At the very least they share the joy of building flying machines and developing the skills needed to be able to control them for safe flight.

Thanks to the quick thinking and generosity of Dr. Bob Nelson, the South Bend Radio Control club had an opportunity of a lifetime. Former student, Kevin Ford, graduated from Notre Dame in 1982 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and is now currently employed at NASA. Kevin was the pilot on space shuttle Discovery, Mission STS-128. Discovery launched on August 28, 2009, from Kennedy Space Center, and returned to Earth at Edwards Air Force Base on September 11, 2009, after making 217 Earth orbits. Kevin made an offer to Dr. Nelson to take some small items into space with him, and Dr. Nelson extended that offer to SBRC. A patch was quickly chosen as a suitable memento to meet the strict size requirement by NASA. The South Bend Radio Control club will donate the patch along with a certificate of authenticity of its flight to the Academy of Model Aeronautics. The AMA has agreed to display it in the National Model Aviation Museum in Muncie, Indiana with other radio control aircraft items of interest to the space program.

Space shuttle missions have taken place with such regularity that they seldom draw much interest from the national press and the public unless something goes wrong. However, on August 28, 2009, many members of the South Bend Radio Control club watched the Space Shuttle Discovery launch on television and followed the mission’s progress with an interest many of us had not had since the first shuttle launch or some other milestone in space flight. That, too, is the significance of the patch. Astronaut Kevin Ford and NASA have allowed us to take part in a small way in the most amazing journey of scientific discovery and aeronautic research that humans undertake today. Many thanks for allowing a small group of modelers to take part and contribute in their own way to that journey.