Campus Flying Club Stiff Competitor

Basketball isn’t the only sport that keeps people up in the air at the University of Dayton.

Just ask Bro. Thomas Dwyer, faculty advisor to the UD Flying club, or one of the club’s 72 student members.

And they’re not all rich kids whose parents own private aircraft. “Most of them are doing it the hard way,” the 42-year-old advisor said, “getting a license and then renting the aircraft.”

College student flying,Bro. Dwyer is eager to point out, cannot be compared with such fads as college student motorcycling. It involves technical manuals, written exams and practical flying ability based on experience.

Forty hours aloft – 20 with an instructor and 20 solo – is the minimum requirement for a private pilot’s license.

There are 21 student pilots and 11 private and commercial pilots in the club.

Commercial and instrument rating qualifications include 200 additional hours of flying – either seperately or taken in the same instruction and experience time period.

“Today’s pilot is far better trained that he was years ago,” the advisor asserted. “Requirements are becoming stiffer all the time. In fact, requirements have reached the point where most people would look upon flight as a legitimate college-level course.”

UD does not give college credit at present for flight instruction, but the matter is being studied as a future possibility.

Club members practice flying at Cox Municipal airport.

The flying club uses a Cessna 150 training aircraft, which can be rented at nominal cost under a special arrangement. There’s also a high-speed(190 mph) 210 owned jointly by the university and the United Missionary Air Training and Transport (UMATT) a Roman Catholic-headed, interdenominational service which maintains five other craft for circuit work in African missions.

The club also shares with UMATT a third Cessna.

And in Miriam hall on the campus, there’s a special “synthetic trainer” by Curtis-Wright, which simulates a complete instrument landing system.

“People come out there sweating as if they had actually left the ground and returned,” Bro. Dwyer said with a chuckle.

The UD Flying club wona trophy last November in a Natinal Intercollegiate Flying association contest at Ohio university. Plans are under way to enter a similar contest at Southern Illinois university this spring.

Bro. Dwyer himself holds commercial and flight instructor’s licenses. So does the club president, UD student Lou Maneuso of Long Island, N.Y.