Applying for jobs is one of the most exciting things I have done since starting at OU. Finally, all of the hard work and training in the past four years is useful! OU and the aviation department have prepared me very well to enter the real world and the world of commercial aviation. I am currently applying to seven regional airlines, and hopefully having some interviews toward the end of the quarter.

Check back later in the quarter to hear more about my job seach and the national flight team competition!

In the meteorology class, we are tasked to look at a significant weather event from the recent past (tornado, hurricane, blizzard, etc.) and look more in depth to the conditions that caused the event. My group has decided to look at a tornado from Tuscaloosa, Arizona from a few years back. It is really a neat assignment to be able to determine the causes to this significant event.

In the environmental geography class, we were assigned to research food miles. Food miles are how far your food has traveled from its point of origin to your plate. We had to compare foods from Kroger to the local foods at the Athens Farmer’s Market. This was also a neat assignment. So many of the foods we think are “fresh” at supermarkets are actually one or two weeks old because of the distance they had to travel. This causes a lot of other effects like the burning of fossil fuels by the shipping of the food.

These are two of the neatest projects I have done at OU as a student. I really enjoy this about the classes at OU. It isn’t only lecture and test, but you get some real experience with the topic too.

To kick off 2012 and my last Winter quarter at OU, I am taking two weather classes and continuing my classes in Spanish. So far I have blogged about Flight Team mostly, but now I want to give you a look into the actual school and education of an aviation major at OU. I am taking my second meteorology class and an aviation weather class. As you can imagine weather is a very important area of knowledge for pilots. I never thought I could know this much about the weather, and always find myself analyzing the current weather in Athens.

As far as the Spanish goes, that is not particularly important for a pilot. But it is something I enjoy to learn. I am glad that I have the extra time and flexibility in my schedule so that I can study Spanish. By the time I graduate in June, I will have completed a minor in Spanish. I already find myself able to communicate and read and write very effectively. I watch Spanish news shows almost every day. This helps me know what is going on and also improve on my skills.

The last new part of life for the new year is new work. I am flight instructing again at the airport and have 2 new students. One is a very new flight student with only 10 hours, and one is an advanced students with about 300 flight hours. Both are very enthusiastic and very rewarding to work with. One of the great perks to being an aviation major is awesome jobs while you are in school.

OU competed very well throughout the competition. We placed third overall in our region, placing first in flight events and third in ground events. Earning third place gives the Flying Bobcats a bid to the national competition in Salina, Kansas this Spring!

Personally I competed in the E6B event (an aviation math based test), the SCAN event (which tests the rules and regulations of aviation), both the power on and power off spot landing events, the message drop or bomb drop event, and the navigation event as well. I placed 6th in navigation, 6th in SCAN, 5th in the power on landing event, and 3rd in the power off landing event. I earned 39 points in total for the team. I had a great week competitng and can’t wait to start practice for the Spring National competition!

The competition includes both flight and ground events. The flight events include 2 spot landing events, a navigation event, and a message drop event. The two landing events are judged by determining which competitor can land closest to a line on the runway. The navigation event is judged by tracking a pre-planned flight path with a GPS unit in the planes. In the message drop event, competitors drop message containers from the air and try to hit a barrel.

The ground events include a series of knowledge based tests, a preflight event, and a simulator event. The manual flight computer event, commonly called the E6B event, is an aviation math like test, where the only tool you can use is the E6B flight computer. Simulated Comprehensive Aircraft Navigation (SCAN) tests your navigation planning skills and knowledge of aviation rules and regulations. The Aircraft Recognition event judges contestants' knowledge of aircraft by flashing pictures of them and asking the contestants to name the plane. In the simulator event, the contestants are given a pattern to fly with climbs, descents, and turns and are graded on how close they fly to the actual pattern. In the preflight event, a plane is “bugged” with things that make it not able to legally fly. The contestants have 15 minutes to go around the aircraft and find these “bugs.”

The higher you place in an event, the more points you earn for your team. The top three teams will move on to the national competition in the Spring. Look for my next blog post to see how I did, as well as the Flying Bobcats. Until then!