Go Fly - Scitus Flight, LLC

Want to experience flight for yourself? Here are some ways:

Personal Flight

Hang gliding
Paramotor
Ultralight/trike
Pilot school
Skydiving
Indoor Skydiving
Kite surfing

Museums

Smithsonian Air & Space Museum – Washington DC, amazing and free
Space Center Houston – the NASA tour/museum at Johnson Space Center; there are X NASA centers around the country, many of them have visitor centers/museums/tours; see the list below
The Museum of Flight – Seattle, WA

Airshows

Wings over Houston
Redbull Flugtag

NASA Centers

Johnson Space Center – Houston, TX. This is where the astronauts are based and undergo much of their training. This is also where mission control is located which maintains communication with the astronauts/spacecraft during flight and helps oversee the mission. (When the oxygen tank blew-up halfway through the Apollo 13 flight, astronaut Jim Lovell called mission control saying, “Houston, we have a problem”. When mankind first landed on the moon (at the Tranquility landing site), astronaut Neil Armstrong called mission control saying, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”) The engineering directorate here consists of 6 primary disciplines: Thermal Control Systems & Life Support, Guidance/Navigation/Control Systems and Aerosciences (heat shields, parachutes, aerodynamic loads, etc), Power & Propulsion Systems, Robotics & Software, Structures & Materials, and Wireless Communication Systems.
Kennedy Space Center – Cape Canaveral, FL; where the rockets are assembled and where the launch pads are located
Ames Research Center
Armstrong Research Center
Glenn Research Center
Goddard Space Flight Center
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Langley Research Center – Langely, VA; a lot of aerodynamics/aircraft research is conducted here.
Marshall Space Flight Center
NASA Headquarters – Washington DC
Stennis Space Center

Careers

If you want to work in flight, you could try the following:
- Become an engineer and work for NASA/Boeing/Lockheed/SpaceX/etc or teach flight science to others
  - You’ll need to have a knack for math and science and have a good high-school GPA (and good SAT/ACT scores) to get into a good college with a strong Aerospace Engineering department. (Doesn’t have to be “Aerospace Engineering” specifically, though that is the most directly related to flight; you could opt for Mechanical/Electrical/Computer Engineering, etc. Others like Ocean/Civil/Petroleum/Nuclear Engineering aren’t as applicable for a career in flight, but likely have some overlap. Get a good GPA in college and try to get an internship with an aero company. (NASA has an excellent co-op program called the Pathways Program which serves as an on-ramp to hire students when they graduate; must be a US citizen to apply.) At NASA Johnson Space Center engineers can also become Flight Controllers. These are the people who sit in mission control monitoring different aspects of a mission and solving problems on-the-fly.
- Become an astronaut:
  - Some countries have a manned space program. Primarily the United States, Russia and Italy, but many other countries have sent astronauts to space. Most of these astronauts are employed by their nation’s space agency (like NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, etc), meaning they are federal employees. But in some cases (which will likely become more common) there have been civilian astronauts; generally very wealthy individuals who pay to be trained and spend a short while in space. Many astronauts train to serve a tour aboard the International Space Station where they generally stay for ~6 months at time conducting experiments in zero-gravity. Many astronauts are scientists, engineers, or medical professionals. NASA requires at least a Masters Degree, however the application process is extremely competitive so typically those selected have one or more PhD’s. Fluency in other languages (particularly Russian) is a plus when applying to be an American astronaut. Flight experience is another plus, particularly completion of a test pilot training program.
- Become a pilot:
  - You can get a commercial pilot’s license so you can work for small airlines where you can fly small parties around in business jets. Or you can work for a large airline and fly jumbo jets carrying a hundred people. You can also become a test pilot which certifies you to fly new/experimental aircraft during the design/test/certification phase; this is a high-risk profession.
- Become an air-traffic controller:
  - You can go to air-traffic control school and get a job at an airline helping monitor and coordinate all the incoming/outgoing flights. This is a high-stress job, not for the faint hearted.
- Work in federal air/space:
  - Get a job in the political sector writing laws for space policies, or for the FAA writing laws that govern the certification of aircraft, etc.

Additional Resources

Join AIAA – the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is a professional aerospace society. You can get their magazine for monthly updates on the world of aero, attend conferences to hear from university/industry speakers, etc.
Other great websites to learn more about aero:

RC Planes

Radio-controlled airplanes can be purchased from most hobby stores. From easy-to-fly styrofoam planes, to scaled model jets. And adding a first-person-view (FPV) camera/headset allows you to see through the cockpit while you fly. You can learn to fly by practicing with an RC simulator such as RealFlight (much different experience than full-scale aircraft sims like Microsoft Flight Simulator.)

Multicopters

Multicopters (often called “drones”) are common devices that come in various sizes, from those that fit on your fingertip, to those that can lift a grown man. There are various configuration styles, like quadcopters (4 propellers), octocopters (8 props), etc. They are used as toys, filmmaking devices, racing devices, etc. You can readily purchase multicopters off-the-shelf, but you can also design and build your own based on your own desired specs. There are various hardware/electronic components involved, which can be purchased online, and assembled together into a final, airworthy product.

There are many online tutorials for projects like this. Some particularly helpful resources are:

Rocketry

Comprehensive model rocket kits can be purchased from most hobby stores and will include everything needed to build and launch a small rocket.

Books

Airman by Eoin Colfer – a fictional adventure story of a young, swashbuckling hero who builds a series of flying machines to save his family. (I highly recommend this book for entertainment and inspiration. I read this as a teenager which sparked a fascination in flight, leading to a degree in Aerospace Engineering, a career at NASA, and the launching of Scitus Flight.)
Skunkworks by Rich & Janos – the auto-biographical retelling of the team that built the stealth bomber
Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation by Otto Lilenthal – an early academic book on aeronautical science. It is a classic, but some of the aeroscience content is outdated.
Jane’s All the Worlds Aircraft – an aviation publication that contains extensive lists of the thousands of aircraft that have been made.
Codex on the Flight of Birds by Leonardo da Vinci – a brief document containing Leonardo’s notes and theories about flight.
The Martian by Andy Weir – a fictional account of an astronaut stranded on Mars who has to solve various technical problems to survive. (Great film adaptation as well.)
Anything by Dr. John Anderson – he has written many college-level textbooks covering various areas of aeroscience.

Movies

The Wright Stuff – the true story of Chuck Yeager and the Mercury/Gemini astronauts (also a TV show)
Top Gun (1&2) – a fictional depiction of an ace pilot’s experience in the US Navy Pilot school
The Aeronaut – dramatization of a team of early balloon flyers flying to extreme heights and pioneering weather forecasting (meteorology)
The Aviator – bio-pic on the life of aviator/film-producer/philanthropist Howard Hughes.
First Man – bio-pic on the life of astronaut Neil Armstrong and his journey to become the first man on the moon
Apollo 13 – bio-pic about the Apollo 13 crew and the true story of how they were rescued after being stranded in space
The Martian – a fictional account of an astronaut stranded on Mars who has to solve various technical problems to survive. (Adapted from a book.)
See Flight in Cinema for some examples of fictional movies involving human flight.
The Great Electric Airplane Race – an episode of Nova describing the AAM eVTOL aircraft movement (Great Electric Airplane Race | NOVA | PBS)
Hidden Figures – the true story of the women engineers at NASA who helped get the first astronauts into space

Video games/Simulators

Microsoft Flight Simulator
Ace Combat series
Kerbal Space Program