Ask an Expert- Pilot

Visit from a Pilot

by Mikayla

Miss Lee’s brother Michael came in to tell us all he knows about planes. We were able to ask him questions.  Here is what we have learnt:

• Michael has been flying planes for five years.
• He says it is fun flying a plane.
• Planes stay up by moving through the air.
• Planes use a fuel called avgas it is light leaded.
• The controls that make a plane roll are called Aileron.
• The plane that Michael flies is the size of a Minibus.
• Michael doesn’t need a co-pilot because he has a license.
• He knows all the parts of a plane off by heart.
• In Michael’s opinion, flying a plane for a long time is a hard but a fun job.
• Michael loves flying planes.
• He hasn’t flown a plane in another country but he has been all over Australia.
• Sometimes, it is hard to land while it is windy.
• To become a pilot, you need to know all your times tables off by heart.
• Michael was nervous when he first flew a plane all by himself.
• Michael got interested in flying planes after he got the opportunity to go to a camp.
• Michael has flown over 200 passengers.
• At the moment he is training so he can teach people to fly.

Here is a video of the visit.

Soaring Experiment

Paper  Plane  Experiment

By Jack, Chica and Ashleigh

On the 25th of March we had an experiment for our Sinking, Sailing and Soaring topic. We made paper planes so we could fly it and record who could fly the furthest. Each pair had to choose a design they thought would fly the furthest. Each pair flew their plane twice, we measured and then recorded the distance.  

Jack, Chica and I would like to say a big 'Great Job' to everyone who participated in our competition. Congratulations to our first place winners Chica and Jack for their great effort on scoring a massive 16.25m. Have a look at the results table below.

Team	First Flight	Second Flight
Kathleen and Gabby N	5.5 m	6.5 m
Charbel and Jason	8.23 m	11 m
Michael V and Dylan	4.6 m	2.51 m
Christopher and Samuel	7.33 m	13.75 m
Mahrae and Lily	7.67 m	13.5 m
Meg and Angelica	3.34 m	3.7 m
Sarina and Jasmine	4.76 m	8.4 m
Gaby and Christian B	12.85 m	5.24 m
Tracey and Clare	9.54 m	7.25 m
Michael N and Luke	5.3 m	14.6 m
Ashleigh and Emma	5.98 m	6.2 m
Mikalya and Georgia	9.5 m	7.25 m
Christian E and Jack	5.29 m	16.25 m

Sinking, Sailing and Soaring: Sail Types

Science Boat Sail Experiment

By Meg & Emma

On Tuesday the 5th March Year 5 CTK made boats with different sails. Each one made it to the other end of the pool in a different amount of time. Some of the sails were made out of newspaper, plastic bag, cardboard, napkin, foil, red star fabric, garbage bag, plastic sleeve, maroon fabric, silk, red fabric, and felt.

This is a chart of how long it took to make it to the other side of the pool and what type of sail they used.

Boat	Time
Angelica, Jason  Felt	7 seconds 50 milliseconds
Christian B, Clare  Newspaper	6 seconds 25 milliseconds
Gabby N, Mikayla  Blue Silk	7 seconds 97 milliseconds
Christopher, Michael N  Garbage Bag	11 seconds
Kathleen, Luke  Red Silk	9 seconds 22 milliseconds
Georgia, Michael V  Cardboard	9 seconds 21 milliseconds
Emma, Ashleigh Red Star Fabric	5 seconds 53 milliseconds
Mahrae, Jack  Foil	6 seconds 19 milliseconds
Dylan, Gaby S Yellow Paper	6 seconds 66 milliseconds
Tracey, Charbel Napkin Boat	5 seconds 47 milliseconds
Jasmine, Lily  Plastic Sleeve	8 seconds 06 milliseconds
Meg, Sarina Plastic Bag	6 seconds 35 milliseconds
Christian E, Samuel Crimson Silk	6 seconds 47 milliseconds

All of the sails were placed in cut up milk bottles and cartons that Yr 5 have been bringing in for a week. The fastest one was Tracey and Charbel’s Paper Napkin boat. CONGRATULATIONS!

How many marbles?

Foil Boat Experiment   

By Emma and Georgia

Yr 5 did a Foil Boat Experiment which is where you had to make a boat out of foil that could float on water. The aim was to put as many marbles as you could in your boat and the winner was the table with the most marbles in their boat. Each tables’ score was bigger than their first attempt.

This was the score board:

Chatterboxes: 1st Attempt: 17 and  2nd Attempt: 49

Gangsters: 1st Attempt:  67 and 2nd Attempt: 153       (winner)

Ghostbusters: 1st Attempt: 34 and  2nd Attempt: 106

Treblemakers: 1st Attempt: 45 and 2nd Attempt: 106

All Stars: 1st Attempt: 60 and 2nd Attempt: 67

Fantastics 6: 1st Attempt: 15 and  2nd Attempt: 148

The Gangsters table won again and other tables thought how they can improve
The Chatterboxes said “We thought we could improve on the boat size.”
The Ghostbusters said “We thought we could improve on the length”
The Treblemakers said “We thought we could improve by not leaving any gaps in the foil.
The All Stars said “We thought we could make it wider so we could fit more marbles”          The Fantastic 6 said “We thought we could improve on their length like
the Ghostbusters.”

Foil Boat Design Challenge

The Foil Boat Experiment

  By Emma and Kathleen

We had to design a boat with our table group that could hold the most amount of marbles.    
After planning our design on paper we then had the opportunity to make a boat out of foil.  We then got to put our boat in the water and we also had to put marbles in it to see who got the most in their foil boat.

Amount of marbles that each boat could hold:
Gangsters: 67
Treblemakers: 45
Ghostbuster: 34
Chatterboxes:17
Fantastic 6: 15


The Gangsters table were able to have the most marbles in their foil boat.  We had to evaluate our boat to see what we could fix or replace to make our boat hold more marbles. In the treblemakers evaluation they realised they "needed to not leave any gaps and create a thicker platform." The Ghostbusters thought their boat sank because "Water starting coming into the boat and made it sink." The Fantastic 6 discovered that they needed to re-look at their design "Because the boat fell on it's side which made the water go in the boat."


We will be trying this again and see if we can improve the number of marbles our boat can hold.