“As a current undergraduate, the AIAA Niagara Frontier Section has offered me the unique opportunity to explore and grow through the stories of engineers before me. Even through primarily virtual involvement, this group has helped me grow a deeper appreciation of the progress made throughout aerospace history.”— Sophie Bates, fourth-year Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Purdue University
As part of National Engineers Week, the Niagara Frontier Section IAS participates in a seven-part television series on engineering careers broadcast by WNED, Buffalo’s public television station.
Air Force Capt. Joseph Kittinger Jr. speaks on “Escape from High Altitude.” Kittinger then holds the world record for highest parachute jump — 102,800 feet in Project Excelsior — a record that would stand fifty-two years.
At the Aero Club of Buffalo, Air Force test pilot Maj Robert Rushworth discusses the X-15 program. He suggests the aircraft may eventually reach 300,000 feet. Joe Walker would later reach 354,000 feet; Rushworth himself reached 285,000 feet, earning astronaut wings.
Roger C. Moore of NASA speaks at a joint meeting of the Niagara Frontier Sections of the IAS and ARS — the last meeting of the two as distinct organizations. The AIAA Niagara Frontier Section is born at midnight two weeks later, on January 31st.
The first recorded AIAA Niagara Frontier Section meeting is a panel discussion on the future of the aerospace industry in Western New York, with Clifford Furnas of SUNY Buffalo, William Gisel of Bell Aerosystems, and Ira Ross of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory.
The section holds a “specialists night” with three technical sessions on aerodynamic propulsion, rocket propulsion, and flight dynamics. Eight papers are presented by engineers from Bell Aerosystems and Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory.
The March 1964 issue of Astronautics and Aeronautics reports the formation of an AIAA student branch at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Faculty advisor is Dr. David Benenson.
Bell engineer Wendell Moore receives the first annual AIAA Niagara Frontier Section Aerospace Pioneer Award for developing the Small Rocket Lift Device — the rocket belt — propelled by hydrogen peroxide monopropellant, the same technology applied to attitude control systems on the X-15 and Mercury spacecraft.
The AIAA Northeastern Regional Student Conference is held at SUNY Buffalo. 150 students and faculty attend; tours of Bell Aerosystems and Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory are included.
Over 200 attend the section’s annual officer installation and dinner dance. The Aerospace Pioneer Award goes to Kenneth Levin of Bell Aerosystems for his role in developing the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV). All twelve Apollo astronauts who landed on the Moon trained on the LLRV or its follow-on. Neil Armstrong later said that their success on the Moon was due “in no small measure” to the experience gained in those vehicles.
Zeno Klinker, a pioneering aviation cameraman turned writer for Edgar Bergen, delivers a comic talk entitled “Higher ’n a Kite — a humorous look at the conquest of space.” His speaking schedule at the time also included the Cape Canaveral, Dayton, San Francisco, and Wichita AIAA sections.