Today the IACE group, in addition to two Westover cadets, Mathew Cole and Juan Rivera, met at the Westover Composite Squadron for the start of the days activities.  With Maj. Tim Nelson serving as our driver, we were off to Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to visit the New England Air Museum.

After viewing all the planes and watching some of the videos, we made our way into the interactive display area. Hands on demonstrations of centrifugal force and gravity, as well as Bernoulli’s principle, were available and everyone got to try the exhibits.  Of course the hits of the day were the Flight Simulator computers.  Todd Oakley, the Australian IACE escort, is a certified flight instructor, so the cadets received some real instruction. We were actually joined by a young man from Italy who just happened to be visiting the museum at the same time as our group.

     Later in the day we went to McDonald’s (everyone's favorite!) and we were soon on our way to the Springfield Armory National Historic Park.  We learned about the history of the Armory and the many important weapons that have been designed and manufactured there.  We also earned about the many manufacturing processes that lead to mass production of high quality weapons, many which are still in use today.

     Then it was off to the Basketball Hall of Fame.  Our visitors know very little about this very American game, but had no problem enjoying  the interactive exhibits and left only when the Hall closed for the day.

      Not yet hungry for dinner, we went shopping at the Holyoke Mall. Most of our visitors had lists of things their families requested them to bring home. Somehow we managed to fit dinner into our shopping schedule, but then ran out of time for our shopping spree!

Oh, well………looks like we'll just have to raid the Mall again later this week!

The Cadets in front of a restored B29

The Cadets at the Springfield Armory