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6B Wednesday, Novemeber 2,2011 The Statement
Wednesday, November 22011// The Statement 3B
news in review
Five of the most talked-about stories of the week, ranked in ascending order of actual importance
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Kim Kardashian filed for divorce
from New Jersey Nets player
Kris Humphries on Oct. 31 after
72 days of marriage. Humphries
was unaware his wife filed for
divorce until the morning of the
announcement.
After a 17-month investigation, U.S.
authorities busted a Mexican drug
cartel's drug-smuggling operation
in Arizona on Monday. Authorities
seized marijuana, cocaine and
heroin from the $2 billion operation
and arrested 76 suspects.
Internet hackers cut the main Republican presidential candid
telephone network for Gaza and Herman Cain denied claims tI
the West Bank and Internet service he sexually harrassed two fem
for most of Palestinian territory employees in the 1990s. Cain s.
yesterday. Officials questioned charges were brought agai
if the attack was related to him, but the allegations w
Palestinians joining UNESCO. "baseless."
ate
hat
ale
aid
inst
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An early-season snowstorm on
the East Coast left millions without
power over the weekend, and 2
million people are still without
electricity. Snowstorm hazards
like down power lines have led to
23 reported deaths.
or
/
The University of Michigan Flyers have been
giving Wolverines the opportunity to earn
their wings over the past 100 years.
Midway across a field in the northwest corner of Ann
Arbor Municipal Airport, where the hangars of
the University of Michigan Flyers butt up against
the gated communities off Ellsworth Road, Kathryn Robine
opened the window ofher 1977 Cessna152 and dropped three
brown paper lunch bags packed with flour. The bags fell 200
feet to the ground, settling more than 100 feet from their tar-
get - an aluminum trash can in the center of the field.
"She's on the right line," said Will Lawler, a fellow flight
instructor for the Flyers, as Robine's aircraft darted over-
head. "But she's letting go too early."
From the ground, where Lawler was standing 10 yards
from the bin ("The closer you get, the safer you are," he
joked), the observation was plain, enough - a straightfor-
ward calculation, as he explained it, of the plane's speed,
altitude and the wind. Yet on that placid Saturday afternoon
Robine had been battling more than the winds. Her task,
flour-bombing, was an all but retired practice, rarely in the
four decades since the Flyers competed for national titles in
the sport in the early 1970s.
The genesis of the University's aerospace engineering pro-
gramming - and, according to the Flyers' current officers,
the club as well - was a letter from the Polish emigre Felix
Pawlowski to 18 of the United States's most prominent col-
leges.
An electrical and mechanical engineer by training,
Pawlowski left Poland for Paris shortly after the Russian-
Japanese war and just as Orville and Wilbur Wright were
beginning to experiment with flight. Enthralled by the
fledgling pastime, he enrolled in flight training at the Uni-
versity of Paris. Under the tutelage of Prof. Louis Marchis, he
earned his Certificate d'Etude in 1910 and set out to build an
airplane by the mold of the Wright brothers'.
Eager as Pawlowski was to inscribe his legacy in aviation,
his lack of funds, the shortcomings of aviation technology
and of his own knowledge slowed his progress. After emi-
grating to the U.S. later in 1910, he settled into a job as an
automotive designer when the Wright brothers declined to
hire him.
But the fame and fortune he sought in comingto America
began two years later, when he penned letters to the deans
of 18 prestigious engineering colleges imploring them to
offer courses in aeronautical engineering. Most replied to
ask if the letter was a joke, with one stating, "Aviation will
very likely never amountto anything!" But Mortimer Cooley,
the dean of the College of Engineering at the time, offered
Pawlowski a position as a teaching assistant in mechanical
engineering with the promise of courses in aeronautical
engineering in 1914.
Pawlowski accepted, and in the fall of that year he began
teaching courses that Cooley "hid" in the Department of
Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering because, as he
wrote in his autobiography, "aeronautical engineering was
not considered important enough to make it conspicuous."
By 1915, Pawlowski had orchestrated a curriculum of 14
aeronautical engineering courses from the introductory
Theory of Aviation to the more arcane Design of Aerodromes
and Hangars. By 1916, this curriculum formed the basis of
a four-year program for the new bachelor's in aeronautical
engineering - the first of its kind in the nation.
Without Prof. Pawlowski, who took a leave of absence
in 1917 to accept the position of aeronautical engineer for
the United States Army, the University may not have man-
aged to start a successful program so early in the history of
aviation. Pawlowski's courses and the lectures of Marchis,
who he persuaded to come to Ann Arbor in 1913, proved to
be indispensable in the eventual birth of the Department of
Aeronautical Engineeringin 1930.
As athird conduit for University students to express inter-
est in flying, Cooley looked into forming a program: Uni-
versity of Michigan Aero Club. After Prof. Herbert Sadler
founded the club in 1911 for students to fly aircrafts - though
they were as much kites as planes - Pawlowski assumed
supervision of the club upon his arrival in 1913 and nursed
it to maturity.
Under Pawlowski, the club met weekly to discuss avia-
tion and the principles of aerodynamics and to study such
principles in the wind tunnel Sadler constructed in the West
Engineering hall. It also built two planes and received one
by means of a donation by two wealthy Detroit residents,
which the club crashed into Barton Pond during one of its
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quotes of the week from the archives
« Bikges break news
Let me tell you that Herman Cain never sexually
harrassed anybody, period. End of story."
MARK BLOCK, CHIEF OF STAFF FOR HERMAN CAIN, in response to
allegations that Cain sexually harrassed two female employees while
working for the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
"Its different here. Ifind myselfgetting sleep.
Interesting conversation. ButI haven'tfigured out
how to do laundry."
ROBERT GAFFNEY, A HOMELESS MAN who has joined protesters in the
Occupy Los Angeles camp outside city hall.
HANNAH DOW/Daily
W hether they are abandoned on a lamp post or dodging between students
on the Diag, bicycles of any size, shape or color are visible at all hours of
the rules the day on campus. The bike racks outside University buildings display
every kind of bicycle available, from homemade motorbike to cutting edge racing
cycle. But in 1989, the emergence of a bicycle style now standard for any Uni-
No. 353: No. 354: No. 355: versity bike rack was front-page news. Fall 1989 welcomed the mountain bike to
As dictated by the It's OK to forfeit Holding hands in campus after becoming more widely popular among bikers throughout the 1980s
("Part dirt bike, part 1-speed, mountain bikes hit campus," 9/28/89).
Starbucks coffee all your classwork a coffee shop on a The new presence of mountain bikes on campus brought about new options for
cups, Nov. 1 marks to look at the new first date is weird. students looking to get a bit more exercise on two wheels by exploring the off-
the start of the winter 2012 course Anywhere else and road trails around Ann Arbor. Still, for students looking for a simple way to get to
and from class, they stressed convenience and cost as the deciding factor when it
holiday season. guide. it's maybe OK. came to choosing a mountain bike over any other style at the time.
by the numbers
COURTESY OF THE BBc
In millions, how many homes are without In inches, how much snow was on the The number of days snowfall has been
power on the East Coast after a rare October ground by the time the snowstorm moved reported in Central Park in October during
snowstorm this weekend. away from the East Coast on Oct. 30. the last 135 years.
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