Gary Vacin

“Things You Probably Don’t Know About the First Manned Lunar Landing” will be the topic of a presentation to the Sun Lakes Aero Club at their March 25 gathering in the Cottonwood Country Club Lecture Hall. The session will begin with camaraderie at 6:30 p.m., followed by the presentation at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

The speaker will be Sun Lakes resident Bruce Vantine, an electronics technician who was employed by General Electric’s Apollo Systems Department from early 1968 to 1969. He later worked for Grumman Aircraft at a facility where lunar modules were manufactured and tested. Here he maintained/troubleshooted all data acquisitions, display, and data/voice recording equipment related to GE’s Automatic Checkout Equipment. Vantine will discuss many details of man’s first landing on the moon: technical, humorous, serious, sad, and the raw courage it took to get there. He’ll also touch on products we currently use in our daily lives, like Velcro, body wipes, freeze-dried foods, Depends, and other items, initially developed specifically for space travel. Other subjects will include how many persons worked on the Apollo Project, its cost over the course of a decade, and the contingencies put in place in the event of failure.

An official Sun Lakes organization, the Aero Club is open to persons interested in any aspect of aviation. Membership is not limited to Sun Lakes residents.

The club will conclude its 2023-24 season on April 22 with a presentation by Sun Lakes resident John Philp who will talk about his 30-year career as a commercial pilot, including many years flying for JetBlue Airlines. He plans to retire from that company later this month.

For additional information on the club, contact Cannon Hill at 509-539-7857 or Gary Vacin at 480-298-7017.