Southeastern Oklahoma State University hosted the National Intercollegiate Flying Association’s (NIFA) Region IV SAFECON Oct. 16-20.
The SE Flight Team finished third in the SAFECON Championship, trailing only LeTourneau University and Oklahoma State University. The first and second place teams receive automatic bids to the national competition in May in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
However, Southeastern is not out of the running – the SE Flight Team will learn if it’s strong third place finish is enough for an invitation to the nationals by the end of the year.
Southeastern also finished second in flying events and third in ground events. A number of SE team members earned top 10 finishes to bolster the overall team effort.
“I am very proud of our team’s progress, as we showed great improvement over last year,’’ said Kyle Thomas, Chief Flight Instructor and Flight Operations Manager at the SE Aviation Sciences Institute. “We were only 19 points behind the second place team. And the weather was beautiful and it was a great week of competition.’’
Following are the results from the SAFECON competition hosted by Southeastern, including individual results for SE flight team members:
SAFECON Championship
- 1st place LeTourneau University 248 points
- 2nd place Oklahoma State 189 points
- 3rd place Southeastern 170 points
- 4th place Louisiana Tech 68 points
- 5th place Delta State 51 points
- 6th place Texas State Tech Col. 32 points
Flight Events Championship SE 2nd place
Ground Events Championship SE 3rd place
Top Scoring Contestants
- Peyton Kirby 4th place 34 points
- Jinseong Park 9th place 28 points
- Nathan Lopez 11th place 27 points
- Kyle Lyons 12th place 26 points
Aircraft Preflight
- Kyle Lyons 3rd place
- Damian Ramirez 8th place
Aircraft Recognition
- Luke Weigel 7th place
Computer Accuracy (E6B)
- Peyton Kirby 1st place
- Jinseong Park 6th place
Ground Training (SIM)
- Nathan Lopez 7th place
- Jinseong Park 8th place
Message Drop
- Peyton Kirby 1st place
- Braden Weber
- Luke Weigel 4th place
- Tatiana Beach
- Alex Craycraft 8th place
- Nathan Lopez
Power Off Landing
- Jinseong Park 1st place
- Alex Craycraft 4th place
- Nathan Lopez 5th place
- Braden Weber 6th place
Short Field Landing
- Nathan Lopez 5th place
- Braden Weber 9th place
Traditional Navigation
- Kyle Lyons 2nd place
- Braden Weber
- Peyton Kirby 4th place
- Jinseong Park
Unlimited Navigation
- Daniel Hair 6th place
- Alex Craycraft
Original source can be found here
