Nov 27
Please join the AHS East New England chapter for our upcoming dinner and networking event featuring Brig. Gen. Anthony (Tony) W. Potts, Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command and Senior Commander of the Natick Soldier Systems Center. See event details below – we hope to see you there!
Please RSVP by November 29th to Amanda Gabardi.
Oct 27
On October 25th, Dr. Robert Shin of MIT’s Beaver Works hosted the East New England chapter of the American Helicopter Society at their innovative laboratory on campus in Cambridge.
Nearly 40 vertical flight enthusiasts gathered for a night of networking, presentations, food, and fun.
Always a crowd favorite, and somewhat of an AHS East New England chapter tradition, Dave Spillman kicked off the event with his famous helicopter trivia contest.Two teams tied for first and each enjoyed a special discount applicable towards the next AHS East New England chapter event. Thank you again to Dave for a fun trivia contest.
Dr. Robert Shin, the Director of MIT Beaver Works, then gave an informative presentation covering the history of MIT Beaver Works. The lab functions as a design space for MIT Engineering students to design and build their capstone projects.
It is an interesting collaboration between MIT and Lincoln Laboratory, and the students work on many real-world problems through 2-semester projects. MIT Beaver Works Lab Manager, Lisa Kelley, took us on a tour of the award-winning facility. The students have access to any tools they could want to design and build their project prototypes; from drills, mills, and lathes to laser cutters and 3D printers, they have it all!
Next, we got to hear from Prof. Sertac Karaman about his research into autonomous UAVs.
Prof. Karaman gave a fascinating presentation about using high-speed imaging cameras and MIT-built computer processors to create virtual environments to fly autonomous quadcopters through.
Someday, he hopes to compete an autonomous quad against an FPV human-piloted quad and win a head-to-head race.
Peter Godart, an MIT Engineering graduate student, then spoke about his research into using Aluminum as a fuel source.
His live-demonstration of reacting his specially treated Aluminum with water was a crowd favorite. The concept of powering the world with waste aluminum was intriguing and exciting.
Ezra Tal, another MIT Engineering graduate student, rounded out the night by sharing his research with the AHS ENE audience. It was every bit as technical and impressive as you’d expect an MIT research presentation to be!
Dr. Shin did the honors of drawing the 50/50 raffle winner – Ed Birtwell – who kindly donated the proceeds back to the chapter. The 50/50 raffle is used to help offset the costs of events like this when we offer discounted tickets for students. Thanks, Ed!
Chapter President, Harry Nahatis, wrapped up the event and announced that our next event will be late November or early December. Special thank you to Dave Spillman for a great trivia contest, and to AHS East New England University Coordinator Brent Vlasman for organizing this great event at MIT!
Stay tuned for more information about our next event!
Oct 11
On October 25th at 5:30pm, the East New England chapter of the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International will have our next meeting at the MIT Beaver Works laboratory in Cambridge, MA.
Join us for a fun night including a tour of the lab and a series of presentations starting with the founder of the Beaver Works lab, Dr. Bob Shin. Food is included in the ticket price.
Tickets are available now! Go to https://ahs-ene-at-mit-beaverworks.eventbrite.com/ to secure your spot.
Please note that capacity is limited, and tickets must be purchased in advance (they will not available at the door). Student tickets are $5, AHS members $10.
Paid parking is available at the nearby Technology Square parking garage. On-street parking is also an option.
Sep 27
On September 20th, AHS East New England – the Boston area chapter of the American Helicopter Society – hosted RDML G. Dean Peters, USN, Program Executive Officer for AIR ASW, Assault & Special Missions Programs, PEO(A) at Spinelli’s Lynnfield for a dinner and social event focused on Navy and Marine Corps rotary wing program updates.
The event was well attended by our AHS Boston chapter members, who all gained unique insight into the tremendous portfolio RDML Peters’ organization is responsible for within NAVAIR.
RDML Peters led an open, informal discussion and left plenty of time to field questions.
Thank you very much to RDML G. Dean Peters for joining us and for sharing his story with the AHS East New England Chapter.
A special thank you to Dave Spillman for another great round of helicopter trivia, and to FLIR for sponsoring the event.
Last Wednesday’s dinner was yet another great AHS East New England dinner filled with interesting conversation, great Q&A from the audience, and fruitful networking opportunities for the vertical flight professionals and enthusiasts in attendance.
See you at our next event!
Sep 08
Please join our AHS East New England chapter for our upcoming dinner and networking event featuring Rear Admiral G. Dean Peters presenting, “Navy and Marine Corps Rotary Wing Programs.” See event details below – we hope to see you there!
May 23
On April 11th, AHS East New England – the Boston are chapter of the American Helicopter Society – hosted Lt. Col Jonathan Morel and John Rucci at the Breakaway Tavern for a dinner and social event focused on the CH-53K King Stallion helicopter program.
The event was well attended by our AHS Boston chapter members, who all gained a unique glimpse into the integrated flight test and development of the Marines’ new heavy lift helicopter, which is powered by the GE T408 turboshaft engine.
Lt. Col Morel and Mr. Rucci presented together, trading off topics and slides in the same integrated fashion that they have planned and executed the flight test program to date. This unique industry-military collaboration has proved invaluable, and the program has experienced numerous benefits from this arrangement.
Thank you very much to Lt. Col Jonathan Morel and John Rucci for sharing their stories with the AHS East New England Chapter.
This proved to be another great AHE East New England dinner filled with interesting conversation, great Q&A from the audience, and fruitful networking opportunities for the vertical flight professionals and enthusiasts in attendance. See you at our next event!
Apr 10
Please join our AHS East New England chapter for our upcoming dinner and networking event featuring Lt. Col Jonathan Morel and John Rucci presenting, “CH-53K Integrated Testing.” See event details below – we hope to see you there!
Apr 07
AHS East New England chapter’s first Drone Night and Trivia Challenge was a huge success!
0ver 60 people joined Boston’s local AHS chapter at the new interim GE Corporate Headquarters in the seaport district of downtown Boston for a UAV-themed night with four guest speakers and a drone/helicopter-themed trivia contest.
The evening began with a UAV show-and-tell. Our guest speakers each brought in some drone hardware to share with the AHS Boston audience.
Bob Gettler brought in a variety of FPV racing quadcopters, and gave our members the chance to fly for themselves using his quadcopter flight simulator, and a micro-quadcopter he flew around the crowd in the room (streaming live-video!).
Adam Sanford of Northeastern University brought in their fixed-wing UAV affectionately known as, “The Optional Step.”
This unique RC aircraft is their own design, and was built for an upcoming SAE design competition.
Nick Brusco and the Boston University UAV Team brought a number of projects that their team has built, including a fixed-wing RC airplane and many quadcopters.
At 6:00pm, AHS East New England chapter president Harry Nahatis kicked off the presentation portion of the event. Harry discussed the benefits of AHS membership, and gave a special thank you to the event sponsor, Top Flight Technologies.
Harry Nahatis, AHS ENE Chapter President
AHS ENE University Coordinator Brent Vlasman expanded on the benefits of AHS membership from a student perspective, and highlighted AHS’s annual student design competition as well as the annual Micro Air Vehicle challenge. About 1/3 of the Drone Night participants were students from the Boston area – with particularly large turnouts from Northeastern and Boston University – there was a lot of interest in participating in future design contests. Most of the students agreed with Brent’s assertion that it’s, “Time for Boston to win some of these things and bring some hardware home to New England!”
Students interested in participating in future AHS design competitions can contact Brent Vlasman or Scott Hannula, the AHS East New England Chapter University coordinators.
With Drone Night officially underway, AHS East New England Chapter Membership Co-chair and Trivia Master extraordinaire Dave Spillman took the stage to kick off the Trivia Challenge. With only a slightly obvious affinity towards Coast Guard aviation history, Dave kept the audience guessing with a healthy mix of Drone and Helicopter trivia questions that covered a broad spectrum of vertical flight topics.
There were four rounds of questions, each progressively more difficult than the last. The winning team received the highly desirable prizes of an RC Blackhawk helicopter for each member of their team!
We had four great presentations from our lineup of drone experts, starting with Michael Clatworthy from GE Ventures.
Michael’s presentation explored the art of the possible, as well as the reality, of what drones can do to inspect high-tech industrial applications such as oil fields and refineries. Michael is a UAS Operations Director at Avitas, a GE company, and his expertise and passion for drone applications shined throughout his presentation.
Adam Sanford, a Bioengineering student from Northeastern University, introduced our chapter to the Northeastern University AIAA club and their efforts to design and build a fixed-wing RC aircraft.
Their innovative approach to design is the result of many lessons – often learned “the hard way” through trial and error, blood sweat and tears, and maybe a few mishaps here and there.
Nick Brusco, a senior in Electrical Engineering at Boston University, shared with us what it means to be a member of the Boston University UAV Team – of which he is the President.
Nick showed us many of his club’s multi-rotor builds and highlighted their passion for pushing the boundaries of design, with many unconventional approaches to the multi-rotor architecture.
Nick’s club uses hackathon’s to teach newcomers about the basics of robotics, design, and ultimately UAV construction and flight.
Bob Gettler was the final speaker of the evening, and he wowed the crowd with the new adrenaline-pumping sport of First Person Viewer (FPV) quadcopter racing.
Bob explained how quads are built, and how they fly – with a much-loved deep dive into control logic and fine tuning of a race quad.
Our AHS got to experience a little bit of FPV racing when Bob showed us some video he took of his recent races on the MultiGP circuit.
After Bob took questions from our members, he had the honorable job of drawing our 50-50 raffle winner. A special thank you to Glenn Davis for running the 50-50 raffle, which helps us to raise funds for our chapter to put on events like Drone Night.
After the raffle, Mr. Spillman took the stage for the final time to announce the much-anticipated Trivia Challenge winners.
Once the winners claimed their Blackhawks, AHS ENE Chapter President Harry Nahatis closed the event by thanking our speakers one last time, thanking Top Flight Technologies again for their sponsorship, and announcing our next upcoming event on April 11th featuring CH-53K test pilots. We hope to see you there!
Drone Night and Trivial Challenge guest speakers. From left to right: Michael Clatworthy, AHS ENE Chapter President Harry Nahatis, Adam Sanford, Bob Gettler, Nick Brusco.
Mar 15
Calling all AHS East New England Members and Boston area drone enthusiasts!
We are very excited to announce our first AHS ENE event of 2017: “Drone Night and Trivia Challenge!”
Join us at GE’s new Headquarters in Boston for pizza and a great lineup of speakers including presentations from GE Ventures, the Boston University UAV Club, Northeastern University AIAA chapter, and AHS ENE’s own Bob Gettler. The event will include a UAV show-and-tell with the guest speakers, pizza dinner (included in ticket price), four short presentations with Q&A, and a trivia challenge with a prize for the winner! For more information see the attached flyer and/or the EventBrite page.
AHS Drone Night and Trivia Challenge
When: Wednesday, April 5th, 2017, 5:30-8:30pm
Where: GE HQ in Boston, 41 Farnsworth Street, Boson, MA
Price: AHS Members: $12, Students: $5.
RSVP: Tickets must be purchased in advance via EventBrite: https://ahs-ene-dronenight.eventbrite.com
Tickets must be purchased by Monday, April 3,, 2017, and are non-refundable. Space is limited to 50 people. Since pre-registration is required, tickets will not be sold at the door.
Please contact Brent Vlasman (Brent dot Vlasman at GE dot com) if you have any questions.
Nov 12
The American Helicopter Society East New England Chapter was proud to welcome Lieutenant Timothy J. Riley as the speaker at our dinner on September 27th, 2016.
Lieutenant. Riley is an Executive Officer with the Massachusetts State Police Air Wing, and gave a fantastic presentation about how the police use helicopters to serve and protect.
The event sponsored by Flir, and held at Teresa’s Function Facilities in Middleton, MA. We had a great time and learned a lot. Thanks, Lieutenant Riley!