Southeastern places third in Aviation competition

SE Communications

DURANT – 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

• 1^st place               LeTourneau University                  248 points
• 2^nd place              Oklahoma State                                189 points
• 3^rd place               Southeastern                                    170 points
• 4^th place               Louisiana Tech                                   68 points
• 5^th place               Delta State                                          51 points
• 6^th place               Texas State Tech Col.                      32 points

Flight Events Championship       SE     2^nd place

Ground Events Championship   SE     3^rd place

Top Scoring Contestants

• Peyton Kirby                      4^th place               34 points
• Jinseong Park                    9^th place               28 points
• Nathan Lopez                    11^th Place            27 points
• Kyle Lyons                           12^th place            26 points

Aircraft Preflight

• Kyle Lyons                           3^rd Place
• Damian Ramirez               8^th place

Aircraft Recognition

• Luke Weigel                        7^th place

Computer Accuracy (E6B)

• Peyton Kirby                      1^st place
• Jinseong Park                     6^th place

Ground Training (SIM)

• Nathan Lopez                    7^th place
• Jinseong Park                     8^th place

Message Drop

• Peyton Kirby                      1^st place
  • Braden Weber
• Luke Weigel                        4^th Place
  • Tatiana Beach
• Alex Craycraft                    8^th place
  • Nathan Lopez

Power Off Landing

• Jinseong Park                     1^st place
• Alex Craycraft                    4^th place
• Nathan Lopez                    5^th place
• Braden Weber                   6^th place

Short Field Landing

• Nathan Lopez                    5^th place
• Braden Weber                   9^th place

Traditional Navigation

• Kyle Lyons                           2^nd place
  • Braden Weber
• Peyton Kirby                      4^th place
  • Jinseong Park

Unlimited Navigation

• Daniel Hair                          6^th place
  • Alex Craycraft