Co-workers aim to make 'incline' fly high
ADAMS TWP — Jon Durfee and four of his fellow nuclear engineers have been working on a project in his garage for the past two months.
It's not cold fusion or a renewable energy source that has the five Westinghouse employees spending nights and weekends hammering, taping and welding their creation together.
Durfee and his teammates — Jeff Levy, Ben Holtzman, Jimmy Hennen and Mike Black — have set out to make a Pittsburgh incline fly.
Rather, their foam and cardboard facsimile of an incline will be entered in the Red Bull Flugtag competition Aug. 5 during the EQT Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta.
Flugtag — German for flying day — is an annual promotion by Red Bull, the energy drink maker, featuring homemade, self-propelled “aircraft” that five-member teams build and push off a 22-foot-high platform into water.
Durfree said, “Last year at the Boyce Park 'Anything That Floats' race, I made a replica of the Clemente Bridge. It floated. It wasn't very fast, but it floated.
“So, when this came up, I thought last time we built a Pittsburgh landmark. We thought we could make this work.”
Levy, who works at Westinghouse's Cranberry Township location with the rest of his “Inclined Plane” team, said of their nearly finished aircraft, “It's made out of cardboard, wood, foam and aluminum tubing. The wings are just plastic sheeting. They definitely took the most work.”
Of course, with five engineers, there were design disputes.
Black said, “Some wanted it stronger, some wanted it lighter. The one who's flying it (Durfee) wants it to be stronger. The rest of us want it to be lighter.
“I think it is going to fly. It's one of the more sophisticated designs,” said Black.
Although as Durfee noted, “We are nuclear engineers, not aeronautical engineers.”
Levy said, “There's been a lot of designing on the fly.”
And the team has had to master new skills. Durfee said some of the work was done at Tech Shop in East Liberty, an open-access workshop that offers classes and a metal shop, wood shop and welding stations.
Levy said, “They teach you how to use high-tech and low-tech tools, although we tried to do as much as we could do in the garage.”
As for that, Durfee said, “My wife, Becky, is putting up with this. 'No projects next year,' I have been so informed.”
Flugtag rules state teams must show design originality and the ability of their entry to fly. They must also devise a theme and skit to be performed on a flight deck set up aboard a barge in the Allegheny River near the Mr. Rogers statue outside Heinz Field.
Durfee said the team's goal is to beat the current Flugtag world record flight of 258 feet set Sept. 21, 2013, in Long Beach, Calif. by “The Chicken Whisperers.”
To do so, the Inclined Plane consists of a base (the incline) and a winged section containing the pilot which will detach and, if all goes as planned, sail out and over the Allegheny.
“That's the theory,” said Durfee. “Before that, fans and judges come for the creativity segment. That's the display mode and then there's the flight mode.”
For the skit, Levy said, “We'll be dressing as the Blues Brothers. There is no rhyme or reason behind it. It sounds like fun, and we thought it would be something recognizable.”
Durfee said, “Crowd response is a third of the score, so if you are from Butler County come down and cheer for us.”
