From the Editor
Calling all writers! Embry-Riddle is establishing a volunteer Eagle Writing Corps to help us expand and enrich our content with stories and news that matter to you. Journalists, authors or bloggers who have a flair for authentic storytelling are encouraged to apply. Those selected for the Eagle Writing Corps will develop articles for Lift and/or write news and feature stories for a variety of online platforms.
This is an opportunity to support your alma mater through your talent and skills, build personal connections with your Eagle Network and expand your writing portfolio. Send a résumé and writing samples to liftmag@erau.edu, for consideration.
— Sara Withrow, Editor
P.S. Inaugural Eagle Writer Chris Pezalla (’07, ’12) contributed a Web Extra for this issue. Check it out: lift.erau.edu/cooldrones.
Anyone Remember AHP?
I am trying to find some information about a chapter of AHP at Embry-Riddle at the Miami Campus in 1960 or 1961. I was a charter member of a new chapter there along with about 15-20 other students. I still have my black mug with gold AHP on it. I don’t have any other names or information but I do know that we had an AHP chapter. Since there seems to be no record that I can find that it ever existed, I am assuming that for some reason it was dropped from the records.
W. Emory Chronister
Former student
Editor’s Note: No records regarding the AHP chapter have been located. Readers who have information about AHP, please email liftmag@erau.edu.
Focus on Throughput
[In response to fall 2019: Terminal Reinvention] As director of aviation in Denver between 1984 and 1992, I had the privilege of leading a very talented team that planned, designed, and constructed Denver International Airport. We had the opportunity to build a major airport from scratch.
Our goal was to make it the most efficient large hub airport ever built, and I think by all measures we succeeded. Our focus was constantly on throughput.
I find the new trend of using valuable terminal space for shopping malls and other unnecessary activities to be terribly wrong headed. These simply are obstacles to passenger flow, increase the unassisted walk distances, and take up space for needed services such as restrooms and seating.
My view is that the industry needs to forget about upscale shopping and fine dining and refocus on the mission of an airport to link passengers from ground transportation to air transportation as efficiently and seamlessly as possible.
George F. Doughty
In the Footsteps of the Founders
In the spring edition [2019: Wings of Legacy: The Riddle of T. Higbee Embry], I read about the origins of the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation and its humble beginnings in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I am from Cincinnati, and as a teenager I used to patron a pool hall that was in the downtown area of Hyde Park as well as “Buskin Bakery.” To read that I walked, perhaps the same paths as T. Higbee Embry, is quite astonishing given my career path. And while I was aware that Cincinnati had a significance in the early beginnings of what we know today to be Embry-Riddle, the Hyde Park [connection] was a new revelation for me.
To the casual reader, the article may have some historical relevance. [For me] I look forward to going back to Cincinnati to visit with family and to visit Lunken Airport, the place where I once played as a child, to see what it has become after some 45 years. And of course, my ultimate desire is to drive though Hyde Park, to see if there are any historical landmarks that mark the birthplace of T. Higbee Embry, one of the founders of our great aeronautical institutions.
Thomas J. Ridley (’05)
M.S. Aeronautical Science
Navy Retired, Mustang