Students help celebrate 'inventing flight'.

Students help celebrate 'inventing flight'. They had to be there at 4:45 a.m., and the weather was anything butcooperative, but the students from Ohio's Miami Valley CareerTechnology Center The Miami Valley Career Technology Center (MVCTC) is a vocational school in Clayton, Ohio. It serves Montgomery County and the Greater Dayton Area, as well as surrounding counties such as Darke, Miami, Preble, and Warren. didn't let any of that dampen their enthusiasm.After all, it was a celebration honoring the achievements of hometownboys Orville and Wilbur Wright, who built their famous plane in theirDayton, Ohio Dayton is a city in southwestern Ohio, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Montgomery County. As of the 2005 census estimate, the population of Dayton was 158,873. , bicycle shop. Because of the weather, only about 40-45 of the expected 130 hotair balloons This article is about hot air balloons themselves. For the associated activity, see Hot air ballooning. The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology, dating back to its invention by the Montgolfier brothers in Annonay, participated in the weekend's event, which was held inJuly at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The gas balloon A gas balloon is any balloon that stays aloft due to being filled with a gas less dense than air or lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). A gas balloon may also be called a Charli��re for its inventor, the Frenchman Jacques Charles. race fromDayton to Kitty Hawk Kitty Hawkor Kittyhawk,part of an offshore sandbar on Cape Hatteras, NE N.C., E of Albemarle Sound. Nearby is Kill Devil Hill, where the Wright brothers experimented successfully (1900–1903) with gliders and airplanes. , N.C., had to be cancelled, but the weather wasdecent enough on Sunday for most of the hot air balloons to take flight. Eric Bickel, aviation instructor at Miami Valley Career TechnologyCenter (MVCTC MVCTC Miami Valley Career Technology CenterMVCTC Mon Valley Career and Technology Center (Pennsylvania)), calls the event "a once in a lifetimeexperience" for his students. "They were very excited," he says. "They're notused to getting up that early, but they just loved it." Most of them, including Bickel himself, had never been around hotair balloons, but they were able to pitch in and help get the event offthe ground. "Everybody went to training the week before," explainsBickel, "and we got the 'lowdown' on what we would bedoing." There were about 40 students who participated, and they includedboth juniors and seniors. First they had to lay out a grid so that theballoons wouldn't run into one another on takeoff. Then theyassisted in assembling and testing the balloons. The students workedwith the pilots on hooking the baskets to the envelopes (the balloons)and helped to inflate inflate - deflate them. Some students actually got to go up in theballoons, and others rode in the chase vehicles. In the end, the students took away memories of a great experience,along with lots of pictures and T-shirts. For Bickel, the respect hisstudents earned may have been the most valuable souvenir. "We received compliments from the pilots and the sponsors ofthe event," he says proudly. The MVCTC students have been participating in other communityservice efforts this year, among them an event held at Moraine Air Park Moraine Air Park is a general aviation airport located 4 miles southwest of the city of Dayton in Montgomery County, Ohio, USA. The air park is located in the city of Moraine. that was cosponsored by Sinclair Community College. The event wasintended to help educate pilots on safety issues, including what workthey can do themselves and what they should leave to a certifiedtechnician when it comes to maintenance of their airplanes.Representatives of the FAA were there handing out information, andBickel and his students demonstrated changing the oil and oil filter ina plane. There was also a question-and-answer session with the pilots. It was a good way for the students to participate in service totheir community, and notes Bickel, "It was a great experience forour kids."