BSU Aviation Flight Team

Contact Information: l1shaw@bridgew.edu (508)531-1779

The BSU Aviation Flight Team Placed 3rd at the NIFA (National Intercollegiate Flight Association) northeast regional SAFECON competition last October 2010. This event was held at Brookhaven Airport on Long Island New York.

It was a 3 day event with participants from various northeastern U.S. regional flight schools. BSU is very proud of the Flight Teams accomplishments!

The National Intercollegiate Flying Association was formed for the purposes of developing and advancing aviation education; to promote, encourage and foster safety in aviation; to promote and foster communications and cooperation between aviation students, educators, educational institutions and the aviation industry; and to provide an arena for collegiate aviation competition. http://www.nifa.us/index.htm .

Here are the events that BSU students competed in along with a description from each participant. Great job BSU Aviation!! Now its on to the SAFECON national event May 16th to 21st, 2011, at The Ohio State University Airport. The BSU Flight Team is actively seeking donations so they can go!! Contact Lisa Shaw at (508)531-1779

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Aircraft Rec.: "For aircraft rec. we looked at pictures of airplanes and helicopter for three seconds, and then were given fifteen to correctly identify what type of aircraft it was. For the most part they were not complete images; instead it was a part, like a tail or cockpit. It was very fun and challenging, we did fairly well overall and we look forward to improving our scores,"

-Cam Alexander, Freshman

E6B:"If the E6B competition was any more in-depth, the contestants would have PHD's in the subject. The E6B competition had every possible math calculation you can do on the flight computer." -Nate Dix, Senior

Scan: "Scan or simulated comprehensive aircraft navigation is a written test that examines your ability to make decisions based on a given set of data.  The information given is used to help with answering specific questions that refer to a projected flight pan.  In the 50 minutes given to you to take the test you can use a number of tools including your plotter and E6-B to answer 40 questions." -Phil Tully, Junior

Preflight: "This event requires the participant to preflight a specific airplane chosen by the judges.  You proceed to preflight the plane as you would before going on a routine flight, but the plane that you are inspecting has no less than 30 "bugged" problems that should be caught during a thorough preflight.  Judges give you a scenario for going about the preflight as well.  This year's scenario at regional's was "you’re pre-flighting your plane before a routine night flight." -Sarah Sullivan, Senior

Power on Landing: "The power on competition was a simulated landing with the ability to use power at the pilot's discretion. A box, consisting of flour, was generated on the runway with a line in the middle of the box to depict your touchdown zone. Taxiing out to the runway in a heat with 4 to 6 other planes everyone does there run-up at the end of the runway waiting for each pilot to be ready before beginning the first takeoff for the heat.  At this point, spacing played a huge factor in being able to make your best landing and it was up to you to judge how long to wait before taking off. With the winds 18 knots gusting to 25 knots, and 4 to 6 other people in the pattern, plus occasional GA traffic entering the pattern, the competition had you think about all different factors but was a lot of fun." -Mike Short, Junior

Power-Off: "This was a very fun and challenging competition. The winds required all of the skill and knowledge to safely land the aircraft on the ground. The crosswind was very strong with large gusts making it almost impossible to land without using power. Overall everyone who competed in this event struggled a little." -Cam Alexander, Freshman

Navigation: "Navigation was definitely one of the most fun events of the competition. I flew as a co-pilot for Cam Alexander who has became one of my closest friends over the past few months. We were given points around Long Island to navigate to and had to calculate time, fuel burn and course. It was amazing to see the results at the award banquet that illustrated where you were in comparison to the course they plotted for you (you were being tracked by two GPS in a tamper-proof bag in the back of your airplane). The event was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again in May at Nationals!" -Kat Dixon, Senior

Message Drop: "This event was incredibly fun as we were dropping small items out of an aircraft at cruise speed at 300' AGL. Need I say more?" -Nate Dix, Senior

For more information about BSU Aviation contact: gbongiorno@bridgew.edu