from Staff
The Jacksonville University Flight Team competed at the National Intercollegiate Flying Association (NIFA) Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference (SAFECON) in Murfreesboro, Tenn., earlier this month and returned to Jacksonville the competition’s most prestigious award — the Loening Trophy.
The trophy is presented annually to the college program that displays the most outstanding competition performance, academics, aviation safety and active participation in aviation in its community. As part of the qualifying procedures, captain Brent Knoblauch and team member Kevin Burmaster made the winning presentation to a panel of judges.
“Jacksonville University is so proud to have such an outstanding aeronautics program on a national level,” said JU President Kerry Romesburg. “This is truly an honor and great reward to those students and faculty who have spent countless hours building the program.”
In addition to the Loening Trophy, the team ranked 12th overall in competition events and 9th in ground events, ahead of the Florida Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois and Middle Tennessee State University. Jason Schappert was named the Top Flight Instructor and Michael Beattie won the Outstanding Team Member Award.
JU students who placed among the top 10 competitors included Jonathan Seletyn and Knoblauch (co-pilot) who captured third place in the Crew Resource Management event. Brian Rendini finished ninth in the Aircraft Recognition event and Seletyn also finished ninth in the Instrument Flight Rules Simulated Flight event.
The team was led by advisers Jeff Harrison and Dr. Rhett Yates, Knoblauch and co-captain Michael Eisenhardt.
“The JU team is very thankful to its supporters and sponsors Michael McKenny, John Clark (Jacksonville Aviation Authority executive director) and Delta Connection Academy,” said Dr. Juan Merkt, director of aeronautics. “This amazing feat would not have been possible without their support.”
The Loening Trophy is the oldest of all collegiate aviation awards. The trophy was first awarded in 1929 when aviation pioneer and inventor, Dr. Grover Loening, saw the need to annually recognize the most outstanding achievements of college aviation programs. The judges on the 1929 panel included Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Navy Commander John Towers.
JU’s Aeronautics Program in the Davis College of Business has been preparing students for business careers in the aviation industry for more than two decades. In 1996, JU established a training partnership with an airline’s training center, Delta Connection Academy, to educate and train future airline pilots. JU aviation degree programs attained accreditation by the Aviation Accreditation Board International in February, joining only 26 other institutions worldwide to achieve the recognition.