Members of the University of Saskatchewan Aeronautics Club discuss the revival of the club and their exciting upcoming endeavors.

While touring a laboratory during a first-year General Engineering course, Alex Morrison and Adam Lund, now second-year mechanical engineering students, heard a professor casually mention the previously defunct Aeronautics Club. 

“[Lund] had mentioned about three weeks prior that he wanted to build a plane,” explained Morrison, the President and Aerodynamics Team Lead of the USask Aeronautics Club. Thus, Vice-President Lund was instantly hooked; “It just clicked altogether — let’s start that again.” After a meeting with the Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Scott Noble, the plan was set in motion. “[Noble] gave us the space to do what we’re currently doing and from there, we went into the woods,” said Morrison. 

The team was officially formed last year in November and currently consists of around 20 members including eight Executives. They’re sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan, the Regina Flying Club, Saskatoon Techworks, the Association of Professional Engineers, and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan and the Saskatoon Engineering Students’ Society. They’ve previously been sponsored by the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 154 and the Prince Albert Flying and Soaring Club.

The university has had at least two iterations of an Aeronautics Club that have been in competitions dating back to the 1980s, explained Noble. Even though he wasn’t a faculty member at the time, having joined in 2007, Noble was around for the re-establishment of the team in the early 2010s and the end of their in-person operations in 2020. Although the team attended a virtual competition in 2021, the pandemic had already done its damage. “We were down to our core members over COVID-19, and it was really hard to keep recruitment up,” explained Kaitlyn Baron, a USask Engineering alumna who was involved with the club for four years. Between the fourth-year students at the time being busy with their Capstone projects and internships, and the team being unable to attend competitions because of the pandemic, Baron explained that the previous iteration of the club struggled to recruit new members.

“A lot of student teams and organizations took a hit with COVID-19,” Noble expressed about the previous team. “People graduating, [clubs] lose the institutional memory — it can be hard to keep going.” So, when Morrison and Lund approached him about re-starting the club, Noble says all he tried to do was be “a voice of encouragement, [providing] support and helping them make connections that they otherwise wouldn’t have known to make.”

The Aeronautics Club consists of an Aerodynamics Team, a Fuselage Team, and a Power and Propulsion Team. The three teams work together to design, build and test remote-controlled aircraft that compete against other universities to see which can lift the most weight. 

They have been designing their newest aircraft since February and began construction in August. “Construction went better than expected,” said Morrison, explaining that they anticipated more significant and catastrophic issues.  Power and Propulsion Team Lead Faith Hryb, Morrison, and Lund agreed that “it went much further than we thought it would,” and they were “incredibly happy that there is even a chance it will fly!” Their test flights, held on September 17 and 29, were a success. With a wingspan of three meters, they ultimately hope to take the plane to Fort Worth, Texas, to compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers Aero Design Competition next May. After the test flights gave them a better sense of which areas to improve upon, they’re expecting the seven-pound plane to be able to carry 20 pounds. The last in-person competition the previous iteration of the club attended was in 2020, less than a week before the COVID-19 restrictions were put in place. Baron explained the 2021 virtual competition involved presenting the design of a plane but not building it.

The strengths of the club do not lie solely in building planes. Morrison explains they also seek to provide engineering students with the practical experience they would encounter in an industry position. He voiced that engineering students “are doing a lot of theory in their classes, and they’re doing a lot of technical work around how things are supposed to work, but in the real world, when they get a professional career, they’re going to need to take those ideas and be able to apply them more broadly in a project setting,” and this is exactly what they are aiming to do. They also noted that there are opportunities for non-engineering students wishing to participate in technical projects and that the club is a valuable way of having engineering and non-engineering majors interact and see how technical roles differ from non-technical roles. 

“Any of these kinds of activities are fantastic — they teach students things that we really can’t teach in class,” said Noble about student-led clubs. Besides gaining leadership skills and working together in a different setting than classes and laboratories, Noble mentioned that “[students] get to take and apply the things we can teach them to a real problem and get that experience, and make connections in industry.” He also mentioned that the benefit of exposing students to industry extends to the university as well, raising its profile as an institution.

Baron was involved with the club throughout her entire undergraduate career, first as the secretary for a year and later as the technical director for three years. “[Joining the club] was quite possibly the best decision I made in my undergrad,” she said. “It gave me another community to be involved with — I had upper years to bother for homework, and I had something to do that felt really meaningful in a way that a lot of our classes don’t feel like until you get later on in your degree.” Baron pointed out that she learned a lot about engineering, social and leadership skills, and project management from her time on the team.

The three aspiring engineers have had quite a pleasant experience since the formation of the club 10 months ago. Hryb, currently a second-year chemical engineering major in the process of switching to mechanical, stated that a major bonus of joining the club is getting hands-on experience with activities such as wiring and woodworking, and that she’s had a very positive experience. Lund echoed this sentiment, explaining that his experience with the team has also been very positive and that “everyone there is a joy to be around.”  In turn, Baron said this team is “super organized, super dedicated, and are doing some really great work,” and that “the hardest part about doing these design teams is not the design work, it’s the logistics [needed] to actually make the club run — and they’re really excelling at that.”

Morrison pointed out that “everyone who is at the team really, truly wants to be there and really, truly believes in what they’re doing,” and singled this out as one fantastic feature of the club. He explained that it is easy to imagine bleak prospects of what life will be like in industry after participating in a class group project where you’re pulling everyone’s weight — being part of a team where everyone is passionate about the work can help dismantle these conceptions, which are often untrue. 

In a mentorly fashion, Noble also explained how he believes clubs help build a community by bringing students together. “Especially for younger students, there aren’t many opportunities to interact with senior students outside of these sorts of activities,” he said. “The opportunity of mentoring and having peers who are a year or two ahead of you, who can give you tips and pointers on classes that you’re struggling with because they struggled with it just recently — it really helps.” Meanwhile, Baron explained that joining the Aeronautics Club provides you with the opportunity to make a difference from day one.
For anyone interested in learning more or joining the USask Aeronautics Club, their website (https://usaskaero.ca) has registration forms and information regarding their teams, members and sponsors. Hryb enthusiastically said that another way of getting started with the club is talking to any team members if you recognize them in the hallways. They hold weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. in the Hardy Lab (Room 1A54, Engineering Building), where everyone is welcome to attend with no prior sign-up required.