The flight team poses for a team portrait at the SAFECON

The Friday before the Flight Team heads to Western Michigan University to comepete in SAFECON, they have a bonfire at the airport. This was the first time thein five years the team has had the bonfire. The bonfire was an annual send off party, however it was discontinued for the past five years under the request of a airport manager.

An aerial view of the Kent State Airport in Stow on Aviation Day in September shows the vast space the airport occupies. The main runway is 4,000 feet long and the airport handles more than 70,000 takeoffs and landings a year.

Mike Fox, sophomore flight technology, Alan Konopka, freshmen flight technology major, and other members of the safety team return from the tarmac after taxiing an airplane for take-off at the SAFECON event in WMU. Of the twenty team memebers only tweleve compete while others help out with safety events.

Flight technology majors Scott Horing, senior team captain, and Eric Pawloski, junior co-captain, prepare for take-off in Western Michigan's multi-million dollar flight simulator. Though the flight simulator is a SAFECON event, the two were only practicing. The duo are required to demonstrate proficiency and precision by flying a given route in the simulator.

Eric Pawloski, junior flight technology major, third year Flight Team member, and Jason Bond, senior flight tech major and first year member, look over an aeronautical chart before competeting in the navigation event. The event is a cross-country flight over a three to five leg course between 70-120 nautical miles in length. The two-man team is then evaulated by how well they followed their flight plan compared to their estimated plan.

The team practices the message drop event at the KSU airport. The goal of the event is to drop the 'message' as close as possible to the container from the airplane. At the SAFECON competition the Flight Team took first, second, and third place in message drop.