Eagles Flight Team Dominates Prestigious Southeast U.S. Regional Flying Competition

The Eagles Flight Team from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach Campus has won the 2016-2017 Region IX National Intercollegiate Flying Association’s Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference (NIFA SAFECON) competition with seven overall first-place victories.

The student team hosted this year’s competition at Massey Ranch Airpark in Edgewater, Fla., from Nov. 1-5, and swept the ground and flight events championships, as well as the overall championship to extend the Eagles’ winning streak to 34 consecutive years. Region IX SAFECON competition includes teams from Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

SAFECON is a national competition that brings together more than 300 students from 30 colleges and universities from across the country to vie to be the regional and then national champions with team and individual pilot honors. NIFA was established to develop and advance aviation education; to promote, encourage and foster safety in aviation; to promote and foster communications and cooperation between aviation students, educators, educational institutions and the aviation industry; and to provide an arena for collegiate aviation competition.

“With a last-minute change of venue, we really had to pull together to make this event successful,” said Eagles Flight Team member and Region IX SAFECON President, Emmy Dillon. “Thanks to the Massey family, the participating schools, Coach Scott Reese and with the support of the university and our great team members, we hosted one of our best SAFECON competitions. We had great weather, lots of fun, and most importantly, an overall safe competition. This was my final SAFECON event after three regional and national competitions, which made this championship especially memorable.”

The Eagles Flight Team is now looking forward to competing in the SAFECON 2017 National Championship, May 9 -14 at The Ohio State University Airport in Columbus, Ohio.

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Individual Honors:

Embry-Riddle senior Tyler Rafferty was the Top Scoring Contestant with Krushan Patel, Winsun Lu, Tsz Him Yeung, and Liam Dermady placing third through sixth, and another six Eagles placing in the top 30.

In the Aircraft Recognition competition, flight team Captain Liam Dermady took first, with Tyler Rafferty second and three more Eagles finishing in the top six.

In Computer Accuracy, Winsun Lu took first, Ho Ching Kendrew Wan second, and Tsz Him Yeung third, as Eagles had five of the top six finishes.

In the Power-Off Landing competition, flight team members took four of the top six slots with Liam Dermady finishing second.

In the Message Drop event, Tsz Him Yeung (Dropmaster) and Winsun Lu (Pilot) placed second with three more Eagle Teams placing in the top 10.

In the Navigation competition, teammates Krushan Patel and Liam Dermady finished first, with Eagle Flight Team members Tsz Him Yeung and Winsun Lu taking second, and Tyler Rafferty and Joshua Swain placing third.

In Simulated Comprehensive Aircraft Navigation, Winsun Lu finished first, Joshua Suarez took second, and other Eagles took an additional three of the top six places.

In the Short Field Landing competition, Winsun Lu, Tyler Rafferty and Krushan Patel finished second, third and fourth.

In the Top Pilot competition, Krushan Patel took second and Eagle pilots placed a total of five of the top seven slots.

Complete results of the Region IX Championship competition

The 2016-2017 Eagles Flight Team coaches and officers include Coach Scott Reese; Assistant Coach Tomohiro Urakami; Region IX SAFECON President Emmy Dillon; Captain Liam Dermady; Chief Pilot Winsun Lu; First Officer Kendrew Wan; Public Relations Officer Joshua Swain; Safety Officer David Bench; SCAN Coach Krushan Patel; Secretary Michael Benson; and Treasurer Tyler Rafferty.

Additional team members include Kalifa Trawally; Pooja Amonkar; Steven Indra Remingten; Hirotsugu Funatsu; Austin Arenella; Bobby Drouin; Chao Li; Issac Yeung; Thomas Saitta; Danny Byrnes; Patrick MacKinlay; Shaun Mukiria; Raymond Rangel; Bolun Liu; Soonho Lee; Josh Suarez; Haebom Lee; Chris Krempa; and Michal Macutkiewicz.

For more information on the Eagles Flight Team at the Daytona Beach Campus, contact Public Relations Officer Joshua Swain at josh.swain@my.erau.edu.