Kristen Waldron
Staff writer
The members of the Southeastern flying team hosted and placed first at this years National Intercollegiate Flying Association Region VI competition.
The team scored a grand total of 543 points. They also placed first in overall flight events with 277 points and in ground events with 266 points.
George Jacox, chair of the department of aviation flight, said, “The team worked hard and had a lot of practices to prepare for this event and their efforts paid off.”
The group of 13 members, Robert Jacobs, Michael Odea, Jordan Powell, Ping Cheng, Ryan Gornto, Scott Sandstrom, Nathan Alcantara, Douglas Cobb, Alec Maloy, Nikola Topalovic, Joshua Ashcraft, Greg Eichten and David Robinson.
These students participated in different ground and flying events at the Southeastern Oklahoma State University flying field at the Durant Municipal Airpark.
The planes flown by the team were Cessna 150s and 172s. “But each school flies different planes during the competition,” said Jacox.
The team also beat the bigger schools in the region like the University of Oklahoma and University of Kansas.
One of the team’s captains, Robert Jacobs said, “We actually have been the best flying team in Oklahoma two years running, just this year we got to beat Nebraska and Kansas.”
The team began to raise the funds to pay their own way to the regional earlier this year. “We worked with the company Yellow Pages to deliver phone books in the Durant area, we washed planes at the airfield, and hosted fly-ins,” said Jacobs.
Fly-ins is advertised gathering of those who enjoy flying and talking about flying. There is usually food and of course flying.
These members work hard and shown that with hard work and determination you can succeed. Next spring the team will be heading for SAFECON 2013,which will be hosted on the campus of the University of Ohio. The national competition the team will be competing against schools like United States Air Force Academy and Liberty University.
Southeastern has been to nationals twice in the past four years. The team placed 13th last year and before that placed 11th in 2009.
November 15, 2012