The Team

What is the Flying Team?
The national Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA) is a collection of university flying teams throughout the country. These flight teams are divided into eleven regions. UIUC competes against Southern Illinois University, Purdue University, Lewis University, Middle Tennessee State University, Indiana State University, Quincy University and Eastern Kentucky University. The teams meet each fall semester at a regional competition, and the top three teams from each region advance to the national competition in the spring to compete against 30 other top schools.

Team History
The UIUC Flying Team has been around since the early 1950's and has maintained its place as one of the nation's leading teams. Our team is known for it professionalism and dedicated competitors and coaches.

What is a semester like?
The team spends the semester practicing and competing against each other, all in preparation for the week of competition. Practices are geared towards the newer competitors to help them gain the knowledge and experience to compete. The team then travels to the school hosting the air meet and stays for one week. During that week, two days are intensive practices for the competition, three days are spent competing, and the last day is the awards banquet. Missing this week of school is entirely manageable. Students from all majors have done it successfully. Students in their first semester as a competitor and at he University have placed extremely well in both the Regional and National competitions and are invaluable to the team's success.

What do I need to compete?
The only requirement for being a competing member of the Flying Team is that you attend UIUC with a minimum of 6 credit hours and have a desire to expand your aviaion background.

The Events

Aircraft Recognition
In this day and age there are numerous types of aircraft and helicopters that fill our skies. It is not hard to get lost when receiving instructions from a controller to follow a plane you have never heard of. Aircraft recognition challenges you to learn, by sight and name, as many aircraft as you can. This is considered by many competitors to be the most fun of all the events.

VFR Navigation
This event is cross-country navigation using only a watch, a map, your eyes, and a compass. You will be given a set of points, in the form of latitude/longitude coordinates, which make up the navigation route. The points can be anything from a private airport to a pink house in the middle of non-descript swampland. These coordinates are the points you will fly over at the time-to the second-that you plan. You are given 30 minutes to plan the flight, and then you go fly and try to find all of the points!

S.C.A.N.
Simulated Comprehensive Aircraft Navigation. This event brings together all the knowledge you need to be a top-notch pilot. The topics for SCAN tests your skills in areas involved in preflight planning. Some of the topics for SCAN are: cross-country flight planning, aircraft performance calculations, weight and balance calculations, and Federal Aviation Regulations. Joining the SCAN team will undoubtedly put you at the head of the class in your ground school (not to mention help your grade out too)!!

Simulator
In this event you'll face the classic struggle of man against machine. You'll take controls of a Frasca 141 ground instrument trainer where you will fly skill patterns (the same ones the airlines use) guided by just six instruments and a clock; you'll climb and turn; and you'll make air speed changes,. This event will sharpen your instrument skills and will make you develop a rapid instrument scan.

Manual Flight Computer
The E6b flight computer can do amazing things, and you will learn all of them for this event: from figuring out how long it will take to travel a given distance (something you'll use daily as a pilot,) to radius of action problems. This event is one of the quickest to learn. Once you know how to do the problems all you need to work on is speed.

Preflight
A thorough preflight: no good pilot would ever fly without doing one. In this event, a light single engine aircraft, such as a Cessna 152, will be "bugged" with about 30 discrepancies. The discrepancies range from mising screws and deflated tires to burned out light bulbs and inoperative instruments. Your task is to find them all. This event is easy to pick up, yet challenging to master. This event will make you a safer pilot, and may even save your life one day.

Accuracy Landings
Can you imagine landing an airplane within inches of a line consistently? That is what this event is all about. The team uses two airplanes (Cessna 152's) that are used to sharpen your skills so you can land on the line every time. This event will teach you the mastery of landing an airplane accurately.

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The Benefits

• It’s Free!! You don’t pay for any of the flying time or instruction you will receive.

• It’s fun!!! The team works hard, but we play hard too. The members get to know each other at events like plane washes, fly-in breakfasts, and team cookouts at the airport.

• It will make your flight classes easier: the knowledge you’ll get from participating will really bring together all the information you’re getting from ground school and your flight instructor.

• The team is made up of students with a variety of flying backgrounds, and many have completed the UIUC flight courses. Interactions with senior students at the Institute exposes you to people who can offer tips on how to succeed in your flight courses.

• Potential employers like to see participation on the flying team. Many know about NIFA and know that your participation illustrates your dedication and love for aviation. Many of the pilots who hire for major airlines were once NIFA competitors.

• It provides you many opportunities to network with people who are already working in the aviation industry as well as fellow competitors from other schools.

• The team travels all over the U.S. for competitions, which will expose you to a variety of flight conditions. In recent years, the UIUC flight team has traveled to national competitions in Kansas, Tennessee, North Dakota and Ohio.

• The team offers extremely high returns for something that is not very time consuming. Competitors spend approximately 3 hours a week for meetings, and practices plus whatever time you want to put in.

The Flying Team welcomes students of all experience levels to come out for the team. You need no prior experience in aviation; all you need is a desire to learn and a desire to have a good time with other pilots! Contact Coach Colin Holbrook in Pilot Training at 244-8568 or csholbro@uiuc.edu.