
DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711050168

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  130 lines

LEARNING TO FLY STUDENTS IN NSU'S AVIATION PROGRAM HOPE TO GRADUATE INTO THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY.

IN THE AIR, when the only thing between you and the ground is a few thousand feet of nothing and the thin skin of a small Cessna training aircraft, grading is pass/fail.

Students in the aviation program at Norfolk State University have such classes in the air above Chesapeake Municipal Airport, learning the ropes of the flight business and how to avoid an A-minus landing.

NSU's aviation program is the only one in Virginia at a four-year, state-sponsored school. Graduates earn a degree designed to place them in the aviation industry. Much of their training to become pilots and non-flying aviation professionals is in the classroom, where they soak up the technical rudiments such as working a flight computer.

The rest is in the air, and it doesn't come cheap.

In addition to tuition, students pay about $5,000 a year in flight fees and plane rentals, though they may earn financial aid to cover those costs.

Their training includes how to ``pre-flight'' your aircraft, as Mark Evans did during a recent training session, which started on the dark gray surface outside the municipal airport.

Evans, 20, has wanted to be a pilot since flying on a 737 bound for Mexico. He was hooked. Now a junior, he has flown for three years and came to NSU specifically for the program. He is also a member of the school's aviation team, which competed Oct. 24-25 in an aviation contest with other flight teams from Virginia and North Carolina.

He was one of two pilots scheduled to practice landings and ``touch-and-gos.'' The young pilot looked over the small Cessna 150 trainer aircraft he would soon launch into the air.

``Once I get my license I can move up to bigger airplanes,'' he explained.

Evans walked around the aircraft, a clipboard in one hand. He ran his other hand along the white skin of the aircraft, checking bolts, feeling the surfaces with his fingertips and checking tire pressure. Little things will get you.

``You want to make sure nothing falls off in the air,'' he said.

Darryl Stubbs, the head of the aviation program, helped Evans calculate the fuel levels.

``Mark weight and balance,'' Stubbs said.

Evans nodded, and Stubbs asked him how many pounds of fuel there were.

``Nineteen,'' Evans answered.

``Okay.''

They did some math.

Each gallon of fuel weighs six pounds. The pilot needs to know how much the plane will weigh in the air, including fuel weight and how heavy the passengers are. This is why the guys in disaster films always throw stuff out of the plane while its losing altitude.

The plane was overweight. Stubbs would have gone with him if the plane had been at the right weight.

``I'm going to go up and burn some fuel,'' Evans said.

``Come back and pick me up,'' Stubbs told him.

Evans nodded and headed out.

``Eighteen pounds may not sound like a lot,'' Stubbs said, ``but . . . ''

Soon Evans was in the air.

Stubbs headed to the landing area.

Inside a classroom by the hangar, members of the aviation class worked on ground situations similar to those they would face during the competition, which is broken into flying and ground events.

Graphing calculators, hand-held flight computers, maps and rulers lined the tables. Students, heads down, worked on problems.

Daryl Trent, 28, of Richmond, checked information on a sheet of paper to determine whether he could launch a legal flight under the conditions listed.

Flying, he said, is one of the few things you can do where you are totally in control as far as what to do and when to do it. ``It's just you and the man upstairs flying that aircraft.'' He's in the Navy's enlisted commissioning program and has been selected to attend flight officer training.

Senior Donnetta S. Johnson, 25, is working toward her pilot's license. She loves the excitement of being in the air, and the career opportunities.

She grew up in Virginia Beach, and remembered watching planes from Oceana.

Now she want folks to see her flying overhead.

Flying isn't a joy ride. It's technical education. It's planning. It's execution. And these aviation students, after all, are still in college.

``It's a normal degree with English and the math and the normal things,'' said John C. Lawler, 53, of Virginia Beach, who manages the flight program and coaches the aviation team.

Major courses include private commercial flight, instructor ratings, safety and ``human factors'' - as in, how to get along with your co-pilot.

Several members of the program are active duty or former military, he said, as were he and Stubbs, a Virginia Beach resident and former fighter pilot.

At one point in their Navy careers, they were in the same squadron stationed at Oceana. Both retired to the area, and Stubbs started the program in 1991 as an extension of another university's flight program.

The program later involved into a four-year course.

Now its students hope to graduate into the airline industry, one of the top 10 employers in the nation.

Mark Evans, of Chesapeake, who is ``three-fourths of the way there,'' practiced the touch-and-go at the end of the runway. Stubbs, judging the precision of each landing, drove his Ford Explorer Sport to the end of the landing strip, got out and watched his students aim for two orange cones marking the landing line. He coached them through a walkie-talkie.

Evans came in for a landing. He came down too early.

``See,'' Stubbs said, pointing, ``I don't know what he's doing. He's way short.''

Evans pulled off the runway and back into the air - touch-and-go.

Try number two went better.

``He drove back about three feet,'' Stubbs assessed. ``Adjust your aim point higher,'' he told Evans through the walkie-talkie.

Another try.

Stubbs spoke into the walkie-talkie.

``Four fox gulf, that was 6 feet short. Make the next one a full stop and I'll work you back in line.''

``You said this one's a full stop?'' the static from the walkie-talkie asked.

``That's affirmative.''

Stubbs dropped the walkie-talkie to his side and watched the Cessna come in for another landing.

``This takes a lot of practice,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photos icluding color cover by PHILIP HOLMAN