Fraser-Woods Montessori Students Keep Their Eyes On The Horizon

By Nancy K. Crevier

Mark Simoneau, a New Milford resident and owner of Helitek, a helicopter flight simulator company out of Hawaii, brought one of the flight simulators to Fraser-Woods Montessori School in Newtown, Monday, December 5, as a supplement to his stepson Scott Dakofsky’s internship on rotor crafts, and as a way, said Mr Simoneau, to give the eight grade students at the school “a chance to see what they can do.”

Scott, an eighth grader, has worked with his stepfather for several weeks to learn about rotor craft, and using the simulator, is learning to fly a helicopter.

“There has been a lot of book work, parts of the helicopter to learn, and lots of reading in order for Scott to be able to tell the class about rotor craft,” said Mr Simoneau.

Helitek leases the simulators to schools for commercial pilots. “This flight simulator goes up and down the East Coast,” said Mr Simoneau. It was shipped to Long Beach, Calif., and then driven in the 20-foot trailer to the Northeast by Mr Simoneau. Since it was in the area, it seemed an opportune time to bring it by the Fraser-Woods Montessori School, he said.

Fourteen of the 15 eight graders enrolled at the school were on hand to try out the simulator, with Scott acting as their co-pilot.

“There have been lots of crashes,” reported William Mitchell as he stepped out of the trailer, but overall, most students felt they had handled “flying” the helicopter pretty well.

While the flight simulator is capable of simulating any weather conditions and can be programmed to present dozens of airports all over North America and the Hawaiian islands, for instructional testing of commercial helicopter pilots, on Monday, Fraser-Woods Montessori students were set up with a computer-generated generic site, “flying” in good weather. Each student was given 15 minutes to experiment with what it is actually like to take off, maintain the horizon, and land a helicopter.

“It’s a great chance for the kids to learn about this. I’m happy to be here,” Mr Simoneau said.