“We’ve always received tremendous support from TU/e, so we decided to thank the university in a big way”, says student of Mechanical Engineering and ZES secretary Jasper Spanjaards. “We’re donating a glider, an I.S.-28 B2. It’s an aluminum aircraft from Romania built in 1978. It has flown for several years, but has now reached its ‘use-by date’. It still flies, but its license has been revoked. We’d have to pay a lot of money to renew it.”

Owner Frans Otten (extraordinary ZES member) and Spanjaards thought it would be more fun to donate the glider to TU/e. “We usually say thank you behind the scenes, but this was a good way to enter into the limelight.” Besides, now the TU/e community can see the club on campus, as it is usually either in their workshop  at Kanaaldijk-Noord or flying near airbase De Peel.

The glider will be suspended in a lopsided nosedive. That way, people who walk into Markhal from the pond can see the aircraft from above. The text to be printed on the glider’s wings and tail has not been decided on yet. ZES hopes and expects the glider will be up before the start of the new academic year.