The Sciport had an exhibit that let the kids, old and young make paper airplanes and then use the launchers that Nate is standing in front of to shoot the planes down a lane. The lane had hoops to shoot the planes through, if you were a "dead eye" and made it through the hoop it would light up to signal your success. It took a while to get the launcher down, but once that was figured out it was a lot of fun!The picture below is of the Space Shuttle landing simulator. They had three different levels to play, novice, student pilot and no fear. Being the young aviation prodigy he his Nate immediately chose student pilot. After several attempts, its harder than it looked, Chris elbowed in for an attempt or three to try his hand at it. Got it on the third try, kissed the pavement with a sink rate of about 7 feet per second, the goal was 15 feet per second or less. Rolled out at Edwards AFB to a successful full stop.
This is one of Nates first attempts, it is at night making it a little more difficult, no visual references to see what you are doing other than the HUD (Heads Up Display) on the screen. Amazingly enough if you take the time and listen to the tutorial on the simulator you can actually land it with some practice.
Here you can see the HUD and the runway threshold markers as Nate comes in for an attempt. We almost got him on the runway several times, he just needed to be a bit more smooth on the controls.
Future Astronaut? Maybe!
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