Aviation Articulation: The Birth of the Junior Flight Team Program
Published by Tom Thinnes on Mon, June 01, 2015
Competition has a way of motivating people. From Pop Warner football to the National Spelling Bee, the thrill of going head to head against a peer has always roused individuals to be their best. In collegiate aviation, the National Intercollegiate Flying Association has had the same impact in the aviation industry. The competitive nature of the NIFA SAFECON events has elevated aviation professionals for nearly 100 years.
NIFA has benefited collegiate aviators for a long time. When talking to professionals in the industry, it is not uncommon to hear about tales of their years spent in college competing in the various NIFA events. However, as the industry moves to recruit the Next Generation of Aviation Professionals, a definitive disconnect was discovered. What about high school students? Was the industry missing a target audience as they worked to encourage the pursuit of aviation to the NGAP?
Enter Western Michigan University and our own competitive flight team, the Sky Broncos. Building upon a conversation that began at the 2014 Women in Aviation conference, Sky Bronco Coaches Ryan Seiler and Marty Coaker met with Tom Thinnes, the Recruitment and Outreach Manager for the College of Aviation. The decision was made to create a small committee with the goal of bringing the idea of the middle/high school Junior Flight Team to reality. Why shouldn’t high school students interested in aviation get a chance to compete and demonstrate their skill competence?
The concept was easy. Let’s take what the Sky Broncos do on a regular basis and introduce the skill set to local high school aviation programs. The general idea centered on local schools forming and managing ground event based teams. The teams would use a guide for prep and competition, with the Sky Broncos holding competition once a year at WMU’s College of Aviation. That competition would run tests similar to regional SAFECON’s in Aircraft Recognition, Manual Flight Computer, Simulated Comprehensive Aerial Navigation (SCAN) and Aircraft Pre-Flight.
Not only would the Junior Flight Team allow high school aviation programs the chance of providing an extracurricular activity to promote blossoming interest in aviation, it would also allow students the opportunity for “bragging rights!” How do they stack up against their peers? What are the skill sets of others from different schools? The Junior Flight Team competition would be the first time these students could get answers to these questions.
This past April, the first official Junior Flight Team competition was held on the College of Aviation campus. When first introduced, the committee dreamed big and introduced the concept to a large number of high school programs that offered an aviation component. The idea was to cast a wide net and see how many participants could be snared for the inaugural competition. However, sometimes “lofty goals” are met with “harsh realities.” While the competition initially had interest from six separate schools, it ended up featuring competitors from the West Michigan Aviation Academy and Kent Career Technical Center. However, those two schools brought almost twenty total students to compete!
An unforeseen benefit of the competition was the opportunity for collegiate competitors to interact and mentor high school students demonstrating an interest in aviation. The college students were able to share their passion about aviation with the young aviators. Team and event captains from the Sky Broncos Competitive Flight Team proctored and corrected the ground event tests and then ranked the students based on performance. The same was done for the pre-flight event with a generous time donation from WMU Chief Flight Instructor Tom Grossman and alumna Jennifer Prichard.
With the dust cleared and the competition finished, the points were tallied while the College of Aviation hosted a lunch for the competitors. This value added time provided an opportunity for the all-important networking component. Not only did the competitors get to know each other, they also had the opportunity to ask questions of the College of Aviation staff and flight team. Following lunch, the awards ceremony was held with each competitor receiving a gift bag and certificate of recognition for participating. Awards were sponsored by the College of Aviation, which donated awards for both 1st and 2nd place in each event as well as awards for the schools.
Successful? Most definitely! Participating students were engaged and motivated. Many of them approached their high school teachers and coaches to inquire about practicing during the summer. The feedback received was very positive and powerful from both schools. Building upon the success of the inaugural run, the goal is to grow and improve for next year. With a little networking, the committee believes it can increase the competitors as well as the competing schools next year. If you are interested in participating, please contact Western Michigan University at avs-info@wmich.edu or 269-964-6375.