Purdue University Flight Team

It is typical in college to join a competitive team that is either athletic or academic. Most people would not suspect that there was a club that competes with other schools in the sport of flying. Purdue University has such a team that trains rigorously trains to show their flying skills to other schools with flight programs. The flight team is part of the National Intercollegiate Flying Association and must abide by all their rules.

The Purdue University Flight Team chooses select students in the flight program that compete in a variety of events that earn the school points in competition. The spot landing event is the main part in competition, where pilots must do their best to land on a line painted on the runway. They have two power on and two power off landings to try to get points by being accurate on the runway. The ground events include aircraft recognition, Simulated Comprehensive Aircraft Navigation, computer accuracy, skills on a flight simulator, and aircraft preflight. There is also an additional event that doesn’t require any skill but is only purpose is to drop a block on a specific spot on marked in a field.

Purdue’s regional competition is being held at Middle Tennessee State University in late October and if the team is fortunate enough to make it to nationals they will occur in the spring at Middle Tennessee State University. Every member of the team must be committed to practice and is required to stay during fall break to make sure that they are ready for regional competition. The team is headed by Professor Larry Gross, who is also head of the flight program at the university. However, the team is mainly organized and ran by the students themselves who work hard at making it a great experience each year.