Forget barnstorming, don't even think Blue Angels — Northwestern Michigan College's new aerobatics offering is all about safety, skills and experience.
Led by Tony Sauerbrey, chief flight instructor for the college's aviation program, the optional course will give students experience flying in unusual attitudes and potentially dangerous situations — while handling them successfully.
"'Oh, you're just screwing around and going up there and defying death,'” said Sauerbrey of common misperceptions about aerobatics training. "When people hear aerobatics, they think something wild and dangerous, but it's not about barnstorming or buzzing fields.”
"Yes, we do a lot of the same things but we're not going within two feet of the ground,” he added, noting that this fall's informal course will evolve into a credit offering.
Sauerbrey served as head coach for the aerobatics team at the University of North Dakota, his alma mater and where he was assistant flight instructor for ten years. The team earned second place in nationwide competitions during his tenure.
Coming to NMC in 2006 from one of the biggest flight schools in the country gives students here the benefit of his extensive training and experience.
"It increased the comfort level with me when you've got Tony, with his caliber, overseeing something like that,” noted Aaron Cook, director of aviation at Northwestern Michigan College. "There are other flight schools that have aerobatics programs, we're taking it in a different angle in looking at it as a safety issue to help new pilots to get used to that.”
When Sauerbrey discovered that one of the school's Cessna 152s was rated for aerobatics flight, he wanted to use that capacity to boost student proficiencies. All flight instructors are required to learn spin training to get their rating. For the students, Sauerbrey plans to teach rolls, loops and combinations of those moves in a plane reinforced to handle up to nine G's.
"It teachers people a lot of good stick and rudder skills,” noted Sauerbrey of aerobatics. "One point of what we're doing is upset maneuvers training: teach people to recover from more unusual attitudes, get them used to it.”
Aerobatics experience is a resume plus for aspiring pilots, although there is not a licensing endorsement. Many airlines, both commuter and corporate, like to see that training and send their pilots for classes if they have not taken them already.
Mastering aerobatic moves can be a boon to any pilot as they require a level of deliberateness and attention beyond standard flying techniques.
"With regular flying, you're babying the airplane a little bit, slowly doing a turn,” said Sauerbrey. "With aerobatics, you're deliberately putting full input in, you're mixing a lot of control inputs together, keeping smooth and coordinated but still are a lot more in control of the airplane.”
Rewiring reflexes is key as student training is based on flying straight and level at all times. Learning how to stay in control even when upside down — where controls are reversed — is a difficult but crucial challenge.
"For some people if they have never been upside down, it's not a comfortable feeling necessarily,” noted Cook. "There are a lot of things that can go south really quickly if you're upside down.”
Students at the college have already shown an interest in aerobatics, with some paying for travel to and classes at the noted Harvey & Rihn Aviation in Texas.
"They take aerobatics training with Debby Rihn Harvey, a world champion pilot,” said Cook. "They do much more than we would do in this particular airplane.”
For more information on Northwestern Michigan College's aviation program, see their web site at www.nmc.edu/aviation.