The Air Up There: Flying Bobcats soar to Nationals
Photo by Andrew Burkle
The deafening silence in the cockpit of Neil Hoy’s single-engine airplane is interrupted as the engine starts and the pilot nervously shouts the steps he’s about to take. Neil stares at the plane’s control panel. His shaking hand pulls back on the yoke, as he steers the plane down the runway — a sedan with wings. The nose turns up, the front wheel lifts off the ground and Neil is flying. Right now, he must prove himself a confident pilot, alone and at 5,000 feet. The plane’s speakers cackle: “Pull the power,” the voice says. “Get your airspeed down. Make your turn right. Adjust for the winds.”
The freshman Aviation Flight and Aviation Management major was raised around airplanes and on runways. His earliest memories in the cockpit date back to before he could even see over those daunting controls, before he could see the sky and the clouds below him. Now a member of the Flying Bobcats flight team, Neil has emerged a promising pilot.
Ohio University’s Flying Bobcats takes aviation majors under its wing and molds them into skilled pilots through hands-on experience in the cockpit. Between 20 and 30 members are on the team this year, doubled from years prior. They represent the Russ College of Engineering and Technology at aeronautical competitions throughout the country.
This year the team has qualified for the national competition: Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference, which will take place at Parks College in Saint Louis, Ill., May 16-24. Events range from ground-related preflight inspection, to flying. Neil will compete in the ground event E6B multiple-choice test. The E6B is the manual calculator that figures weights, balance, performance, distance, times, speeds and winds to determine the appropriate direction for pilots to maintain course.
With family friends like the Wright Brothers’ descendants, Neil had an aviation-enriched childhood that included visits in which he would spend hours admiring Wright memorabilia. He was privileged to take behind-the-scenes tours of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base led by his grandfather, Walt, a former Air Force officer and current tour guide at the base. Neil’s grandfather earned a degree in aviation from Parks College — coincidentally, the same airport where Neil will compete at Nationals — and went on to fly helicopters in Vietnam. Neil’s father also flies, and Neil himself learned to fly on the family plane.
At 10 years old, Neil wasn’t entertained by paper airplanes like his friends. Rather, he was enticed by his family’s Mooney single- engine plane. His father, Doug, recognized a familiar gleam in Neil’s eyes when he saw the family plane. To strengthen their father-son bond, his father suggested a flight to the Urbana airport for the airport restaurant’s famous fruit pies.
The pair drove to the hanger in the rural outskirts of Dayton that houses their plane, and Doug pulled the plane out onto the small strip of runway. As the engine rumbled, he opened the door to the cockpit and told his son to situate himself behind the controls. Eagerly, Neil slid across the plane and tightened his grip on the controls. His father followed his son into the cockpit and sat behind the other control panel. Neil’s grip on the controls transferred the vibrations of the engine throughout his veins, increasing his adrenaline rush.
It wasn’t until Neil flew his first solo flight years later that he realized his dad only let him think he was flying when really he was in the co-pilot seat. Yet Neil’s realization didn’t deteriorate his love for aviation.
“I like the environment of the cockpit. It’s just you and your co-pilot. Although, there are more things to worry about when you are flying,” Neil said, “You can definitely fall asleep driving a car, but you can’t in a plane. There are so many things happening, it’s hard not to pay attention.”
While providing a source of family bonding for the Hoys, aviation also serves as an outlet for competition through logging flight hours. As a status rank, pilots meticulously log their hours spent at high altitudes; this rank fuels the smack-talk pilots boast to one another during those painfully long layovers.
“I really just want to pass up my dad. My dad has about 400 to 500 hours, and I just broke 100 hours a couple weeks ago. My grandpa stopped logging [at] 20,000 hours,” Neil said.
The competitive nature that his father and grandfather have instilled in him has allowed Neil to succeed as one of the youngest members on the Flying Bobcats national team.
“I live at the airport. On average, I’m there four to five hours a day. On Sundays, I have to be there at 10 a.m. and don’t get back [home] until 5 p.m.,” Neil said.
There is no typical day for Neil or any aviation major due to unpredictable weather conditions. Days range from overcast, unfavorable conditions that are spent cleaning planes, to sunny, calm afternoons spent soaring above the hills of southeastern Ohio. As the date for nationals approaches, the team spends their days avidly practicing both flight and ground skills at the Gordon K. Bush Ohio University Airport and Academic Center.
Rather than loading one of the athletic department’s Bobcat charter busses, the Flying Bobcats travel in style: four planes flown by the team members themselves.
As Neil prepares for his flight competition debut, he looks ahead to his career with the knowledge he has already accumulated from the Flying Bobcats. Neil hopes to someday become an airline pilot, and he is optimistic about the future prediction of a new hiring trend to replace older pilots as they retire. He has even tossed around the idea of corporate flying for a celebrity or a wealthy businessperson.
No matter where Neil lands in his career, the Flying Bobcats has honed this young pilot’s aviation skills.”[Flight team] gives you a vast knowledge about aviation,” he said. “It makes you a better pilot.”
Photo by Andrew Burkle