Profs and Pints - Richmond

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “How Do You Fly This Thing?” A discussion of the basics of piloting airplanes and navigating your local airspace, with Nate Young, FAA-certified commercial pilot and flight instructor at Washington International Flight Academy.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-fly-this-thing .]

For many of us, riding in an airplane from point A to B is an act of faith. Lacking much understanding of how the plane flies, how anyone flies it, or what’s happening around us, we sit there experiencing varying degrees of trust and trepidation.

Profs and Pints is offering those who want a deeper understanding of airplane flight the next best thing to a seat in the cockpit: An evening with an airplane pilot and instructor at one of the region’s largest flight schools.

You’ll learn the basics of how airplanes fly, focusing on the importance of lift, weight, drag, and thrust as well as how airplanes harness the laws of physics. Young will explain what pilots are actually looking at when they scan the instrument panel, how to understand and predict turbulence, and principles on landing an airplane—and living to tell all about it—should you ever find yourself in a cockpit all by yourself.

We’ll cover the basics of how to read a navigation chart and look at the “roadmaps” that pilots of all types use in getting around the United States. You’ll learn how to read and predict weather like a pilot, based on how they take into consideration cold or warm fronts, low- or high-pressure systems, radar, and weather information sites. You’ll gain a sense of how to view clouds through their eyes, considering cloud shape, color, and height to predict bumpiness or unstable air and whether a nasty thunderstorm is brewing.

Young, who trains private pilots, commercial pilots wanting to become flight instructors, and retiring U.S. military pilots seeking to transition to commercial airline work, also will discuss how pilots make risk assessments using FAA-approved frameworks. We’ll cover explanations for in-flight turbulence and other things you might experience as a passenger.

Finally, we’ll explore Virginia’s rich aviation heritage, including Richmond’s pivotal role in early American aviation. You’ll hear about the famous visit to the city by Charles Lindbergh himself and how Virginia has long punched above its weight in terms of aviation’s historical milestones, from the early days of reconnaissance balloons used in the Civil War, to the first powered aircraft, to cutting edge aeronautical research during the Cold War.

Young will connect that history to the airspace pilots fly today and explain how regional airspace design reflects both history and modern safety needs. Whether you’re a nervous flyer, a frequent traveler, a history buff, or an aerodynamicist, you’ll be glad you climbed on board for this talk. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Photo by Nate Young.

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Cinderella’s Story,” on the origins and evolution of a fairytale heroine and cultural icon, with Kitty Maynard, former professor of French at Washington College, director of the Faculty Hub at the University of Richmond, and scholar of early modern France.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-cinderella .]

Cinderella is arguably the most famous fairy tale of our time, its elements feeling so familiar that they seem to express universal experiences and human values. But while Cinderella might seem timeless, the version of her known to us today has a very specific origin in seventeenth-century France and the political climate of that time. Moreover, she has changed dramatically over the centuries to appeal to new audiences.

Get to know the plucky young heroine whose tale has become part of our everyday culture and language by coming to Profs and Pints at Triple Crossing-Fulton, where lifelong learners have a ball.

Dr. Kitty Maynard will take us back to the court of Louis XIV, where courtier Charles Perrault wrote Cinderella in 1697 to offer real lessons to a real audience consisting of fellow courtiers rather than children. You’ll learn how French society at that time had a particular version of social mobility in which its aristocratic structure allowed the advancement of meritorious and industrious male members of the bourgeoisie but limited female agency to marriage.

We’ll look at how one of Perrault's contemporaries, Madame d'Aulnoy, came up with a very different take on a Cinderella story, in which Cinderella found her man and symbolically proposed to him. We’ll touch upon the Brothers Grimm's dark version of the tale and discuss how Cinderella has been pliable enough to stretch into other eras because basic tropes in her story appeal to our love of underdogs and sense of justice.

When Walt Disney brought Cinderella to the screen in 1950, he transformed Perrault’s version dramatically to reflect the ideals and expectations of a postwar American audience and the ethos of the American Dream. You’ll get to know the Disneyfied version of her, as well as those in Dina Goldstein's “Fallen Princesses” photo series and in a smattering of recent remakes of Cinderella such as Ever After, the live-action Cinderella, and comedic takes like Cinderfella.

Among the questions Dr. Maynard will tackle: Where does Cinderella really come from? And what makes her story so compelling to us today?
Don’t worry. The talk will end long before midnight. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an Elizabeth Tyler Wolcott illustration of Cinderella from about 1920.