A Semester in the Life of a MTSU Aerospace Pro Pilot Student

This week in the Aerospace department I’ve had the opportunity to attend several events that were hosted by airlines. The first of these events was a presentation given by Endeavor Air on Tuesday. Conveniently, the presentation was in a classroom at the bottom of my dorm. What’s more, Endeavor Air also provided Chick-Fil-A, which was a bonus. The presentation itself focused on networking in aviation and resume basics, which I found to be quite useful. Two current Endeavor Air pilots gave the presentation and helped explain their program, STEP or Student to Endeavor Air Pilot. Endeavor Air is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines and operates the world’s largest fleet of CRJ-900 aircraft. Endeavor Air also flies CRJ-700 and CRJ-200 aircraft.             The next day I was able to attend another presentation by a regional carrier: Republic Airlines. Republic Airlines is a regional airline subsidiary of Republic Airways Ho...

MTSU's Air Traffic Control Simulator This week I had the pleasure of being able to tour MTSU’s ATC lab! The lab consists of a 360-degree tower simulator and radar simulators. The tour was led by two current MTSU aerospace majors, which was nice. The students explained that there are three different areas of air traffic control: tower, TRACON (Terminal Control Approach Facilities) and Air Route Traffic Control Centers- which is knowns as simply “center”. My classmates and I were first able to tour the radar side of the lab, which houses TRACON and en route simulators. In all honesty, the bombardment of new terms was somewhat hard to follow, but it definitely gave me a better appreciation of the complexity of air traffic control. It was interesting to hear how the three different components of ATC interact and learn more about the purpose of each one. Unlike the tower and TRACON, centers are not located at the airport but outside of major cities across the US. This was somet...

NASA FOCUS Lab This week in the Aerospace Department seemed to go by rather quickly and uneventfully, probably because of my anticipation for the coming fall break. I can’t say that there was a single event that overshadowed another; rather, there were many interesting aerospace-related events and discussions. This week I was able to build and begin test flying my balsa wood glider for Theory of flight. Though, the most interesting thing I was able to do this week comes from my Intro to Aerospace class. I had the opportunity to tour and learn more about the NASA FOCUS Lab in the BAS. The lab, which is an acronym for Flight Operations Center- Unified Simulation, was originally funded by NASA. The lab is designed to mimic an airline and gives senior Aerospace students the opportunity to run a highly accurate airline simulation, dubbed “Universal e-Lines”. I think one of the most interesting aspects of the FOCUS lab is the fact it gives Aerospace students from every concentrat...

Colton and I flying over Nashville in the DA40 This week I was able to do my first flying here at MTSU! As part of the requirements for my Theory of Flight class, I had to fly for 30 minutes in a simulator, followed by two and a half hours of actual flight time. I must say, I had a blast. My day started with meeting my instructor for the day, Colton, at the airport. Colton was a fantastic instructor. Colton served in the military for six years as a flight dispatcher before deciding to peruse his dream of becoming a pilot, which is what led him from Florida to MTSU. I was excited to hear that Colton has already graduated from MTSU last Spring and will be joining Republic Airlines this December. As for me, after checking out the last (and least) of the Diamond DA40s, Colton showed me the basics of how to check the plan before flying. Per my request, we took off and headed for Huntsville, Alabama. Landing at Huntsville and seeing Colton interacting with ATC was an interesti...