by April Wilkerson
The Journal Record
10/22/2009

NORMAN – Flying is still a romantic adventure in Norman, where tomorrow’s
pilots are proving their prowess.

The University of Oklahoma is hosting the National Intercollegiate Flying
Association regional competition this week. About 25 planes and 100 student
pilots have filled the Max Westheimer Airport for activities that challenge
their flying talents and knowledge of safety.“It’s human being and machine
working together as one,” said Ken Carson, director of the aviation program
at OU. “A good pilot or a good air traffic controller has to be
forward-thinking and have abstract reasoning because the conditions will
change. We call it ‘thinking in 3-D’ – they must think of the plan, the
passengers on board and the weather they’re flying in.”

Student pilots from Region VI are competing, and the event wraps up
Thursday. The region includes Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska; in addition to
the Flying Sooners, other Oklahoma schools with teams are Oklahoma State
University, Southeastern Oklahoma State University and Spartan Aviation
College of Tulsa.

“It’s not exactly like the Big 12 Conference, but similar,” Carson said.

The competition tests pilots both in the air and on the ground, said
Richard Montgomery, student president of Region VI of NIFA. In the air, the
competition includes a “navigation route,” in which pilots fly over several
checkpoints while planning their time and fuel burn. They also do a
“message drop” to see who can most accurately drop a 2.5-ounce container
into a 55-gallon drum from about 300 feet in the air.

On the ground, teams are presented with an aircraft that has been “bugged”
with 30 problems that should be found during any pre-flight check,
Montgomery said. They also must prove they can convert dimensions, such as
knots per hour to kilometers per hour.

“They not only have to know the right answer, but how they arrived at the
answer,” he said. “They really have to be diligent and have a desire to do
this.”

Aviation students have been trained at OU since World War II, and about 200
people are now working toward degrees, Carson said. The university offers
several aviation management degrees in both flying and air traffic control.

The university also has invested in new technology during the last two
years, Carson said. An air traffic control simulator arrived in January,
and a flight simulator in 2008.

“It saves fuel and allows students to simulate emergencies safely,” he
said.

For its “real” equipment, OU has 14 Piper Warriors and two Piper Arrows –
single-engine planes – as well as a Beach Baron and a Piper Seminole,
multi-engine planes.

For information about OU’s aviation program, visit www.aviation.ou.edu.