News

2008.0621

Chopper on the Campus Flavors the Commencement But Worries Officers

By Jocy Su Campus Reporter A helicopter on the main campus became the center of attention for everybody, including local police officers and Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) officials, when it made a big entrance at the sports field today. The aircraft, owned by Class 1970 graduate from English Department and Yoshine Helicopters Inc. (祐祥直昇飛機股份有限公司) of Taichung President Charles Lin (林正祥), was escorted and transported by a full-size tow truck from Taichung and arrived at National Taiwan Normal University’s (NTNU) main campus around noon.  Office of University Relations said that this helicopter demonstration activity happened to feature the main theme of this year’s commencement – “Let’s Fly.” When approached, Office of University Relations Assistant Coordinator Vickie Lo (羅皓恩) said that a Swiss pilot initially planned to fly this helicopter from Taichung directly but the plan ended up a dead end due to a non-fly zone restriction by the Aviation Act (民用航空法), now that the main campus is too close to the Presidential Office. Upon arrival, workers immediately unloaded the baby helicopter, which only fit two passengers, including the pilot, from the truck and relocated it to the center of the sports field for the two demonstration activities, which were held at 3pm and 5:30pm. During an interview, Lin said that he would be more than happy to help more NTNU students to learn how to fly a helicopter. "I have this dream that we can start a whole new era of sports and recreational aviation,” he said.   “We will usher in the third revolution of human history, that is, the revolution of personal transportation.” Lin said that he is planning to cooperate with College of Sports and Recreation and establish the course that would help train NTNU students to learn how to become a helicopter pilot.  Dean of the Student Affairs Frank Fang (方進隆) said that this course will likely become a professional program but more details would need to be discussed and worked out. Four graduates, including Gary Hung (洪甘霖) and Chiang Bing-shiun (蔣秉勳) of Special Education Department, Daniel Yang (楊斯閔) of Computer Science and Information Engineering Department and Ho Shou-cheng (何守正) of Graduate Institute of Sports and Leisure Management, were invited to board the helicopter on behalf of their fellow Class 2008 graduates during the activities, although the helicopter remained on the ground. Hung is suffering from cerebral palsy; Chiang has severe visual disability; Yang is the executive of the 2008 Graduate Association and Ho is a star forward for the Taiwan Beer Basketball Team. The helicopter’s entering the campus caused a commotion not only on the campus itself but also in local communities, as two police officers immediately arrived at the scene to make sure the helicopter did not go up in the air. Few minutes later, more police officers and a CAA official also arrived and wanted to make sure that nobody would fly the aircraft anywhere else. Fang explained that an anonymous tipster told the police that “a helicopter seemed to be forced landing on NTNU campus" so the police and CAA official would arrive at the scene. President Gou Yi-shun (郭義雄) was not happy about the police’s and CAA official’s interference and insisted that nobody broke any regulation or law during the event and he, as the president of NTNU, should enjoy total authorization over whatever takes place on the campus.