Founder/President of Duke Aviators

When I arrived, Duke was missing a community for students interested in aviation and flying, specifically. My sophomore year (2022), I got a small group of students together that also had their Private Pilot Licenses, and together we founded Duke Aviators: a new group dedicated to sharing our passion for aviation with the Duke community and beyond. Since then, we’ve built an on-campus flight simulator, sent over 30 members on funded introductory discovery flights, had 3 members complete their private pilot training,  led high school outreach workshops, and raised over $30,000 in funding to sponsor new projects and initiatives.  For my senior year (2025), I stepped in again as President to solidify our group’s impact and presence within our engineering community for years to come. The result was a massively productive year in which we developed an immersive, realistic flight simulator, sent 40+ students flying for free, and formed new partnerships that will ensure the organization’s success for years to come.

Simulator Development

In my junior year, I used my engineering experience to take the lead on renovating our on-campus flight simulator, which works seamlessly with our weekly ground school lessons to introduce the fundamentals of general aviation and allow students to gain hands-on flying experience right on campus. I led a dedicated team of engineers to improve our simulator’s capabilities to become a state-of-the-art, immersive, realistic flight simulator.

From conceptual design to hands-on manufacturing and machining, we developed our own Cessna 172 G1000 simulator with interactive displays and hardware. With a laser-cut dashboard, 3D-printed mounts and switches, custom-machined brackets, and hard-wired screens and control inputs, engineers with a variety of backgrounds and skill sets were needed to make this happen.

For 2024-2025, the simulator development team doubled in size, and as President, I worked with the club’s Technical Lead to bring the flight simulator to a new level of immersion and reality. The team emphasized the design and development of complete “DIY” components that brought new and exciting engineering experiences to our members. From designing a life-like Cessna 172 dashboard to building a custom PC that could support our 3 50″ 4K monitors, we did it all to make the simulator as cutting-edge as possible.

To increase engagement with our new, feature-packed flight simulator, I also coordinated a 1-on-1 simulator lesson booking system that paired up experienced simulator pilots with anyone in the Duke community who wanted to try their hand at flying. This was massively successful in sharing the word about the flight simulator. In the 2024-2025 school year, over 100 30-minute flight lessons were given on the simulator, from curious novice students to renowned aerospace engineering professors. We also launched “Simulator School Day” events for local Durham Public Schools to bring classes onto campus and give students a chance to try our simulator out (see Outreach section below).

Outreach

A major aspect of the organization is outreach. We formed a partnership with a local flight school to negotiate discounted flying rates and even a Discovery Flight program for selected club members to have a fully-funded introductory flight lesson. Lastly, to reach beyond Duke, we partnered with local Durham Public Schools to run aviation workshops for middle and high school students, introducing them to the aviation industry and giving them a chance to try out our mobile flight simulators! In my 3 years with this group, we sent Duke over 60 students flying for the first time and taught over 50 local middle and high school students about the field.

Simulator School Day Event

The success of the Duke Aviators group in its first 3 years is my proudest accomplishment at Duke. The reach of the organization across campus has gone farther than I ever could have imagined when we first started. I have poured my heart and soul into making the organization what it is, from flight simulator engineering to the discovery flight program, countless airport tours, outreach workshops, and more. The countless unseen hours spent behind the scenes ensuring the group functions properly are made well worth it every time a new member catches the flying bug. I am so grateful to everyone who believed in this group and bought in from the start, from Bryent, Lauren, Alex, and Avery (our founding executive board) to Tarina Argese, the Pratt Director of Student Affairs, and Dr. Kenneth Hall (our club advisor) and all those who will continue to shape the future of Duke Aviators after I have left.

 

Check out our website and Instagram for more!

 

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