ANAHEIM : Aeronautics Class Project Takes Off

Two teams from Magnolia and Savanna high schools are preparing diligently for their showdown match, but when the rivals compete at Savanna this May they will not be clashing on the athletic field but in the sky above it.

About 12 students from each school are enrolled in an aeronautics class offered by the Anaheim Union High School District’s experimental Saturday Enrichment Academy. School officials believe it is the only program of its kind in Orange County.

The students have spent most Saturdays since September in Savanna’s physics room, learning the principles of flight from a volunteer group of model-airplane enthusiasts, the Compton Tail Spinners. They have been building radio-controlled motorized balsa wood planes that they hope will eventually take flight.

The teams, concentrating now on mastering aeronautic basics and building planes from kits, will be sent to separate rooms next month to design and build motorized model planes from scratch, each hoping to build the best for May’s competition.

“Magnolia and Savanna are old-time rivals, and that has kind of hyped the class up,” said Alexandria White, a 17-year-old Savanna senior, whose father is an aircraft inspector. She said the rivalry has been friendly in the class and the students help each other, no matter their school. But then she thought about the upcoming contest, smiled, and added: “Magnolia’s going to lose.”

The class was the brainchild of Prentiss Ellis, Savanna’s vice principal, and his friend, Charles Kelly, a former longshoreman who is a leader of the Tail Spinners. Kelly had taught students to fly model airplanes at the Compton junior high where Ellis previously worked.

When Ellis came to Savanna two years ago, he and Kelly decided that the older students could learn to build the planes and be taught the physics behind flight. After a year of preparation, they got the go-ahead from the district, and the class began in September.

“We were thinking we would get about five students from each school,” Ellis said. “But as you can see, we got more than that, and I really didn’t want to turn any kids away.”

Kelly said the depth of the students’ questions has surprised him and sent him on more than one occasion scurrying to his reference books.

“When we got into talking about vector forces and airfoils, the kids were asking us to explain it,” Kelly said. “Well, you can explain it with algebra, with trigonometry or with calculus. They wanted to us to explain it in all three. That was hard because I hadn’t studied trig or calculus since 1972.”

Last Saturday, the physics room was swarming with activity. Groups of students, working with Tail Spinners, were gluing fuselages together, while other students used sandpaper to smooth wings and tail sections. Others worked on the kit planes’ alcohol-based fuel systems.

“Hopefully, this plane will take off and we’ll be able to use the radio to bring it back,” said Omar Rafeh, a 16-year-old Savanna junior who was using fiberglass and glue to piece together the wing of his school’s kit plane. “This class has helped me become interested in the whole aerodynamics field.”

“The class is fun and it has been interesting,” said Bill Ruehl, a 16-year-old Magnolia junior. “It has to be to keep me coming at 8 (a.m.) every Saturday.”

And the students’ interest has impressed the Tail Spinners.

“I remember that when I was growing up, anytime somebody wanted to help me learn something I was more than willing to take the help,” said Cedric Johnson, a Carson paralegal. “Well, I think there are a lot of kids out there today who feel the same way and will learn if someone will just show an interest in them.”