An academic assignment at Redstone Arsenal turned into an opportunity of a lifetime for two West Point cadets to experience the Army’s best aviation systems.
Victoria Walling '14 and Jason Sommerfeld '14, who will enter their senior year as mechanical engineering students at West Point this fall, got their first choice for their academic individual advancement development assignments this summer when they were selected to spend four weeks at the Redstone Test Center’s Aviation Flight Test Directorate. Their last day at Redstone is Friday.
“Our assignment was to shadow in industry or in military research, really anything in the mechanical engineering field,” Sommerfeld said. “The assignments are based on class ranking and order of merit. It was pretty awesome that we both got our first choice.”
Walling, who had talked to another cadet assigned to RTC in the past, knew it was the right choice for a cadet fascinated by helicopters.
“This was the place we really needed to be. I knew we could learn a lot here,” she said.
And RTC was ready to show them all the capabilities of the Aviation Flight Test Directorate.